Most Uncommon Japanese Last Names (2022)

Japanese names consist of a surname and a name following it, and, as a rule, are written in hieroglyphs. However, parents sometimes use the Japanese syllable alphabet of hiragana and katakana to write down the names of their children. Furthermore, in 1985 the list of officially allowed characters was expanded for writing names. Now you can use Latin characters (romanzi), hentayganu, manyogana (syllabic alphabets), as well as special characters and symbols. These are some unique Japanese Last Names.

Hayashi – forest

Maki – Genuine/real

Tachibana – Orange/ tangerine

Tsukuda – Cultivated rice field

Moto – Base/ root/ origin

Nakajima – Middle island

Abe – peace

Akiyama – Aki means autumn and Yama means hill

Sasaki – sa  means aid and saki means tree

Ueno – ue means above/top/upper and no field/wildness