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.

Top 20 Boy's Names born in 2015				Top 20 Girl's Names born in 2015
1	Haruto	11	Sousuke	1	Hana	11	Sana
2	Souta	12	Haru	2	Yui	12	Rio
3	Yuuto	13	Yuuki	3	Mei	13	Rin
4	Haruki	14	Kaito	4	Aoi	14	Kan'na
5	Yuito	15	Hiroto	5	Koharu	15	Himari
6	Riku	16	Eito	6	Akari	16	Ichika
7	Yuusei	17	Souma	7	Honoka	17	Hinata
8	Kouki	18	Asahi	8	Sakura	18	Airi
9	Hinata	19	Haruma	9	Mio	19	Hina
10	Yuuma	20	Hayato	10	Yuna	20	Kaho

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