Japanese Last Names With Dark Meanings

How this list was compiled: A list by a written rule, built on 3 October 2026. Names: every written form that JMnedict, the name dictionary of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (file dated 2026-10-03, https://www.edrdg.org/enamdict/enamdict_doc.html), tags as a surname and that holds one of fourteen kanji: 黒, 闇, 暗, 冥, 影, 夜, 鬼, 塚, 墓, 死, 骨, 血, 霊, 魔. For the four kanji that stand in hundreds of names (黒, 影, 鬼, 塚) the list keeps two-kanji names whose other kanji is taught in the first two years of Japanese elementary school (KANJIDIC grade 1 or 2; for 塚, grade 1 only) or is another kanji of the fourteen; for the other ten kanji it keeps every name of two or three kanji. A name is kept only when one of its surname readings in JMnedict splits kanji by kanji, in one way only, into readings KANJIDIC lists for those characters. That gave 356 written forms. Twenty-three were then taken off by hand: four that are also ordinary words this site does not print, and nineteen that the dictionary tags as surnames but that Japanese Wikipedia (read 3 October 2026) shows, or their form suggests, to be something else: the posthumous names of two emperors, two monks' names, two pen names and a ring name, the title of a novel, the words for a serenade and for Christmas Eve, four names that end in the word for a hermitage, a hall, a temple or a garden, and all five names written with 魔. That leaves 333 names. For the rest the dictionary's surname tag is the only record, and other names of that kind may remain among them. Each card gives one reading on record: the reading this site's Japanese last names page prints for the 12 names it also holds; for 11 more the reading whose spelling is the title of an English Wikipedia page that gives these kanji (read 3 October 2026; 鬼塚 keeps the first in kana order); for 16 more the reading Japanese Wikipedia gives for the surname, or the one most people of the name with an article there carry (read the same day); and otherwise the first in kana order. Up to four other readings on record follow, and the card does not say which is heard most. The romaji is Hepburn. What the kanji mean: one or two of each character's English meanings in KANJIDIC (file dated 2026-10-03, https://www.edrdg.org/wiki/index.php/KANJIDIC_Project), for common characters the ones this site's Japanese last names page already uses. KANJIDIC gives 鬼 as ghost or devil; the Japanese word oni is also given in English as demon or ogre (English Wiktionary, 鬼, read the same day), and 塚, a mound, is also a burial mound there. These are dictionary meanings of the characters, not a record of how any family came by its name, and they say nothing about anyone who carries it. JMnedict is a dictionary of names on record, not a count: many of these names are very rare, and no figure for how many people carry one stands behind this list. Shared with other lists of this site, matched on the kanji: 13 of 333 names (3.9 in 100); cap 40. Licence: Readings and the surname tag: JMnedict; kanji meanings and grades: KANJIDIC; both © Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, used under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://www.edrdg.org/edrdg/licence.html). Two notes on kanji and some lead readings: English Wiktionary, English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. The selection is our own work.