During the Azuchi-Momoyama period, the former distinctions between noble and commoner women’s names disappeared as commoners adopted the names of the nobility. Meanwhile, noble women used a nickname
There were thousands of clan names in use among both commoners and the aristocracy. This is a short list of clan names attested for commoners in the resources
Dictionaries and Helpful Lookups Oxford NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese (ONCOJ) A short list of useful Old Japanese words Translations of waka poetry with the original text and
These are names borne by non-aristocratic men in 8th-century Japan. Aristocratic men had already begun to develop the complex system of multiple names and differing name elements that
These are names borne by non-aristocratic women in 8th-century Japan. The main source of these names is a list of people who were given rations of rice by
If you need a Nara-period name for a commoner and you don’t want to read through the pages upon pages of delicious scholarship I’ve amassed here, this is
Bureaucracy is in Japan’s blood. Although the Japanese didn’t have any writing system until roughly the 5th century, and didn’t have a way of writing their own language
