In 500 years’ time everyone in Japan will have the same surname, a Japanese demographics expert has predicted. Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, a researcher in the impact of aging populations at Sendai’s Tohuku University, used data analysis and modelling to look into naming trends and traditions in Japan. He noted that the prevalence of “Sato” as a surname was growing.
“I began by gathering data on the share of different surnames in 2022 and 2023 and was able to determine that 1.529% of the Japanese population had the name ‘Sato’ in 2023,” Yoshida said.
While that might not seem a huge proportion in a country where there are 130,000 different surnames, it is enough to make Sato the most common in the country and that figure is up 0.83% on 2022. If the trend continues, the professor concluded, as many as half of the Japanese population will be surnamed Sato by the year 2446. By 2531, everyone in the country would be a Sato.
Husband’s surnames dominate
Part of the problem is a highly conservative attitude towards naming practices in the land of the rising sun. The law stipulates that married couples must share the same surname and while there is no official reason why the man’s name should prevail, in practice nearly every couple chooses to go by the husband’s surname – 94.7% of the couples who wed in 2022 took the husband’s family name.
It all adds up to a wipe out of surnames of families where there are only daughters in the bloodline, reducing diversity in the pool of names available. In 2022, 478,000 women’s so-called “maiden names” effectively became extinct.
Slow progress
Yoshida is part of a project called “Think Name” that is investigating the consequences of not allowing partners to retain their own names on marriage. He explains that the issue goes right back to Samurai cultural heritage and “the old days” when he noted “only a man could be a samurai and only his son could continue the family name, so women effectively did not have their own names.”
The problem continues these days “because there has been such slow progress in gender equality in Japan,” the professor added. “This culture is very conservative – as you can see because we have never had a female prime minister.” With power in the hands of the mostly male Liberal Democratic Party, the issue has been kicked into the long grass despite support for change from the Japanese Trade Union Confederation and surveys showing that over 60% of people would retain their own names after marriage if given the choice.
And surnames are not the only thing dying out. Yoshida has undertaken separate research that shows Japan’s falling birthrate means the country’s population will have dropped to a mere 281,866 Japanese in the year 2531 and would be down to just 22 people by the year 3310.
