Japanese name consists of "family name" and "first name (given name)".
And "family name" precedes "first name", contrary to the name of Western people.
This order is same as the names of Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese peoples.

"Suzuki Ichiro"
Suzuki is the family name and Ichiro is the first name.

But, when we introduce ourselves to Western people, we often say our family name after our first name.
"Ichiro Suzuki"

There is no general rule of the order.
When you must remember the name of an important person, you had better ask which is the first name.

In this website, I have used the order "first name - family name", because of English text.

Family name

Family name in Japan consists of a few kanji characters.
Most names consist of two characters, and some names consist of one character or three characters.
The names with over four characters are rare.

It is said that there are more than 300 thousand kinds of family names in Japan.
The below list has the top 101 family names in Japan, but the people with these family names is only one third of the total population in Japan.
During my school days, no classmate with the same family name I have was in my class every year.
There are a wide variety of family name in Japan.

But the family names of Korean and Chinese people almost consist of one kanji character.
So there are a very narrower variety of family names than Japan.

First name

After a baby has been born, the parents enjoy naming.

Generally, to create the first name, they combine a few kanji charcters. Of course, they can also use hiragana and katakana characters.
Each kanji character has some meanings.
They select the best characters for the baby from over 2,000 characters.

For boy, they select the characters with meanings such as "big", "great", "brave", "fly", "fight" and so on.
For girl, they select the characters with meanings with as "bright", "sunny", "beautiful", "lovely", and some flowers' names.

After that, they give the reading to the combination of the characters.
Traditional name for men has "o", "rou", "ichi", "ji", "zou", etc. at the end of the name.
And traditional name for women has "ko", "mi", "yo", etc. at the end of the name.
But these are old-fashioned, so recent young parents don't like so much.

Generally, the following words are often used as a part of the name.
aki / atsu / iku / etsu / kazu / kei / kuni / kyou / sato / shige / sumi / jun / taka / teru / tomo / nao / nobu / nori / toshi / haru / hide / hiro / hisa / fumi / masa / michi / mitsu / moto / yasu / yoshi / yuki / yuu / you / ryou / etc.

For boy, the following words are used as a part of the name.
katsu / ken / kou / dai / hei / hiko / shin / shun / shuu / shou / suke / jou / taku / tatsu / tetsu / ryuu / etc.

For girl, the following words are used as a part of the name.
ai / ami / aya / ayu / emi / eri / kumi / nana / nami / mai / maya / mayu / mayo / maki / mana / mari / miki / miho / mina / momo / sachi / saki / saya / sayo / yuka / yumi / yuri / rumi / ruri / waka / etc.

In Japanese language, a kanji character has some readings.
So selected characters are able to be read variously.
The parents give the favorite reading to the character.

This is the way to name in Japan.

But, recently, many young parents tend to name a newborn child freely and they often select the name with good feeling of the word.
As a result, some popular names are used for both boys and girls.

Top 20 Boy's Names born in 2016				Top 20 Girl's Names born in 2016
1	Haruto	11	Asahi	1	Hana	11	Riko
2	Souta	12	Hinata	2	Sakura	12	Mei
3	Yuuto	13	Hiroto	3	Yui	13	Mio
4	Haruki	14	Yuusei	4	Rio	14	Rin
5	Sousuke	15	Kaito	5	Akari	15	Haruka
6	Riku	16	Haru	6	Aoi	16	Hina
7	Yuuma	17	Souma	7	Kiharu	17	Kaho
8	Yuito	18	Yuuki	8	Honoka	18	Momoka
9	Aoi	19	Kouki	9	Ichika	19	Ema
10	Takumi	20	Minato	10	Sana	20	Himari

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