WHY DID YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME? Name Changing Patterns and the Life Course in Early Modern Japan

Abstract

Many legal documents of the early modern period of Japan's history contain references to common people changing their personal legal names. This article is a first report of an effort to discover why men changed their names and the social structures behind this behavior. The study uses the population registries of Nishijo village in Central Japan to trace the name changes of men in the village, and the life courses of men who changed their names and of those who did not. It analyzes the relation of name changers to life events, to their family members, and to family structure. Name changing was strongly related to succession to the headship and inheritance in the stem family. In some families, specific names were inherited together with the headship. However, name changing seems to have been more commonly used to mark heirs and eldest sons who did not inherit and thus reveals the maneuvering within families to ensure the capable lineal continuity of the family. Name changing patterns may be an important tool for understanding the development of the stem family.