“I don’t think it would be a good world to live in,” warned an economics professor. A law currently in force is in question.
Women who marry a Japanese man take the husband’s surname in 95% of cases. On identity papers, maiden names can still appear alongside married names, but it is not possible, as in France, to have two different surnames. Indeed, Japan has a particularity: it is the only country in the world to impose the choice of a single last name for married couples. We thus find many families bearing the Suzuki name, and more and more Sato. But a Japanese researcher has made some predictions about the consequences of such a policy in the long term.
According to a study carried out as part of an update of the Civil Code dating from the 19th century, Japan risks, by 2531, seeing everyone be called Sato-san if the law currently in force does not change not. Indeed, according to another survey carried out in March 2023, the Sato surname is already the most widespread in the country, representing 1.5% of the total population. But then, how can we differentiate people from each other if everyone is called the same way?
“If everyone becomes Sato, we may have to call each other by our first names or by numbers,” laments study director Hiroshi Yoshida. “I don’t think it would be a good world to live in,” added the economics professor at Tohoku University, according to the Japanese newspaper the Mainichi. According to his calculations, more than half of the population is likely to be called Sato in 2446 and this would concern, in 2531, all Japanese!
To reach this conclusion, Hiroshi Yoshida studied the evolution of the number of people with the surname Sato, then calculated the proportion of the population in Japan with that name. He then estimated the growth rate over the years to determine the specific year he predicted all Japanese people would have that same name. For the moment, voices are being raised to demand the abolition of this law, asking for the possibility of having distinct last names once married.