Today is more of an announcement than an article…
The name of a person or thing is written as ‘Name’ in English-speaking countries. In Japan, this is called ‘Namae’. It is curious that similar spellings are used for the same matter in cultures with fundamentally different language systems.
We would like to make a decision and make a notice about the “Person’s name”, which has been bothering us ever since we started publishing our INABANA.JP in July last year.
Japanese names are given with the family name first, followed by the first name. The family name comes first, followed by the personal name.
For example, if the name is ‘Yamada Taro’, ‘Yamada’ is the surname and ‘Taro’ is the first name.
In addition to Japan, several other Asian countries, such as China, Korea and Vietnam, have surname-first cultures, and I have heard that the same is true of Hungary in Europe.
In the past, when describing people’s names in INABANA.JP articles, we have often used the ‘first name + surname’ form in accordance with English-speaking cultures, but in some cases we have used the original ‘first name + surname’ form. In some cases, we used the original ‘surname + first name’ form, because we thought this was more appropriate for the content of the article.
In other words, there was a mixture of the two writing systems on one website.
In addition to the fact that the site is originally Japanese to English, which is difficult to translate perfectly, the mixing of names burdens the reader with further confusion.
Therefore, from now on, we would like to unify the notation to the original Japanese form of “surname + name”.
We wondered whether we should give priority to first names, which is the majority worldwide, but as this is a website that transmits Japanese culture, we will also try to use the Japanese original notation for names. We ask our visitors for their understanding.
In case you are wondering, there is a culture of middle names in other countries, but there are no middle names in Japan today.
Until the time of the samurai, people sometimes had a ‘nickname’ between their surname and first name. （In those days, the real name (first name) was considered to be something to be hidden, so the nickname was used in everyday life.
This culture is no longer used today, with accurate family registration laws in place.
For example,「Miyamoto Musashi / 宮本武蔵」, the legendary swordsman known abroad, is “Miyamoto = surname”, “Musashi = common name”, “Harunobu / 玄信 = first name (real name)” .
From now on, INABANA.JP will use the Japanese style and commonly used name ‘Miyamoto Musashi’.
Thank you for your cooperation…
One last thing.
There are people in Japan who do not have a surname but only a first name. That is only 16 people out of a population of 120 million. (as of 2025/01)
That is the Emperor and other members of the Imperial Family.
They have maintained 2000 years of royalty completely in one family and lineage, which is why…
