The Name Game

Of all the "cultural quirks" I have observed while living in Japan, I believe the strangest to me has been the offhand way that personal names have been legally changed to suit certain circumstances. As in many western societies, names may be changed when an adoption or remarriage takes place, but the name changes that I have become familiar with here are a bit different. I call them the inheritance change, the name continuance change, and the stroke number superstition change.

The Inheritance Change

As implied, this change is for inheritance purposes, and is probably the most common of the three, being often applied when males wish to marry into a family with obvious advantages. This first came to my attention a couple of years after I started working in Japan, and was a bit of a shock.

Among my colleagues was a nice, quiet young man named Sato-san.¹ Well, after working with him for more than two years it was announced one morning in the office that he would be getting married and that his name would change. (!) At first, I thought that my hearing was off, so I asked another co-worker about it later in the morning. She said that I heard correctly: his last name would change to that of his bride's family because his family was relatively poor. So, Sato-san got married and became Nakano-san. This was a first for me, and I'll admit that it took some getting used to.

The traditional Japanese omiai style arranged wedding helps to ensure that both parties are relatively equal when it comes to social, academic, and economic background. But when the bride's family is of an obviously higher economic status, owning land and/or a company, etc., with no son to inherit it all, the husband of the eldest daughter is legally "adopted" into the family as a son, and his family name is changed to theirs. This is the standard format for well-to-do "daughters-only families" in Japan. Their name established the fortune, so they want their name to remain attached to it. I have even heard of cases where parents of the bride-to-be made the groom's name change a condition of marriage simply because they thought their family to be superior for one reason or the other.

The Name Continuance Change

The next type of name change that I've encountered here is simply for the purpose of name continuance within families, regardless of any family fortune. The story I'd like to tell concerning this is a perfect example of what a mess it can become, and how comical it can get. (Well, I thought it was hilarious.)

In our old neighborhood there was a three-generation family: a grandmother, her two sons and their wives, and the eldest son's two sons. The two married sons had different last names despite their having the same parents. This was absolutely strange to me, but the explanation given was: The grandmother's father was a "great politician" in his day (she made sure she reminded us of this whenever we were invited over for dinner), and since he had no son to continue his name, his daughter (the grandmother) and her husband (now dead) decided to give their second son his family name in order to keep it going. So, the eldest son's last name was the same as his father's, while the second son's last name was his mother's maiden name. (I wonder how many hundred times these two brothers had to explain the reason for this while growing up.)

Anyway, these two sons grew up, got married, and the eldest one now has two sons of his own. However, the second son and his wife weren't able to have children for many years, so they decided (by command of the grandmother), to pass this "name change legacy" on to the next generation by having the second childless son legally adopt his brother's second son, which would include the boy's last name being changed to match his uncle's (the grandmother's maiden name). I didn't mean to be disrespectful, but I couldn't help busting out laughing as my wife explained all this to me. Apparently, nothing is much sadder to the Japanese than having your family name die out, and this grandmother wanted her father's to continue at all costs.

The reader may wonder about adoption. As a rule, the Japanese shun it. Adoptions for marriage or within families for reasons mentioned above are all right, but the acceptance of a non-blood relation as one's own is very, very rare and considered a "last resort" measure. Of all my acquaintances here, I only know of one couple who adopted a non-relative child, and that was only because they could not have any of their own or adopt any child of a relation. Also, the Japanese do not have middle names — just a first and a last — so an in-family legal adoption is the only alternative when there's a possibility of a family name dying out. In other words, any "greatness," whether it's real or imaginary, must be carried on by a blood relation.

This story has a good ending, however.

When we moved away from that neighborhood, this family was in the process of making the legal arrangements to hand this boy, about 5 years old at the time, over to his uncle to raise as his own so he could keep his great-grandfather's name going. Happily, however, the second son's wife got pregnant about that time, so they put everything on hold. Then, when it was found that they were going to have a boy they cancelled the adoption, and the boy was able to remain with his own parents and keep his original name. What a big relief! He was lucky. If he had been adopted by his uncle with the name change, and got married and had only girls, then he would have had this burden of continuing to find a way to keep his name alive. But now it's back on the uncle's shoulders. He, and now his own son after him, will have to hope the name can go on naturally or else find an alternative when a male heir isn't produced.

Though this particular incident had a happy ending, this type of name change is not uncommon in Japan.

The Stroke Number Superstition Change

This to me is the saddest and poorest excuse for a name change that I can think of, but to the person who believes it'll help, it becomes a necessity. It's based on numerology² and the number of strokes in a persons name.

To illustrate this, think of the name TOM, and imagine that each letter is taught to be written only one way: the T is a two-stroke letter, the O is only one stroke, and the M has four strokes. If you add them up you get seven, a lucky number in many cultures. The characters used to write Japanese can get much more complicated, with some having many strokes, but the number of strokes is known for each one and never varies, and the total number of strokes that make up both the given name and the full name is usually considered when choosing a name for a new baby. There are books that can tell you by the total number of strokes in your name whether it's lucky, unlucky, or neutral; and not only that, they'll tell you in what way it's lucky or unlucky.

My wife has a certain relative who was named Keiko¹, a name I really like. It was a fine name until she got married. Connected to her new husband's family name, her full name became instantly unlucky. Keiko's mother, who is the real numerologist along these lines, warned her that there would be trouble, telling her that her particular "unlucky number" was the type that would bring misfortune upon the husband in the form of a health problem, and so advised her to get her name changed right away. I was very surprised when I heard of this, wondering how a parent could so easily accept the name change of a child they had raised and lived with for 20+ years.

Well, Keiko laughed it off and told her mom that she was full of beans. Then, a year or so after her marriage, the husband developed a health problem which required back surgery, and, of course, the mother was positive that this was the curse of Keiko's unlucky name and her mockery concerning getting a name change to rid herself of the problem. Now that "proof" of the curse had visited Keiko, her mother was able to convince her that a name change was absolutely necessary in order to live a normal life.

Keiko and her mom sat down, thought about some new name possibilities, checked the stroke number of the relevant kanji³ characters, including the total when added to her new (husband's) last name, and came up with a new, "lucky" name: Yoshie. She then went to City Hall and made it official. After all these years as Keiko, presto! — she's now Yoshie. (Even though many years have passed my wife and I just can't get used to it, and still refer to her as Keiko. She wouldn't be pleased if she found out.)

These three cases outline just a part of what I call the name game in Japan. Remembering the everyday unchanging names can be challenging enough, but it can get particularly difficult when your old buddy Kenji comes up to you one day and says, "Uh, I'm not Kenji anymore...."

Notes

1. The names have been changed to protect privacy.
   
   
2. Numerology is the study of the occult significance of numbers.
   
   
3. Kanji are the complex characters adopted from the Chinese.

© 1999 - 2008 Tim R. Matheson

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