Short answer
- A samurai name was usually a layered identity, not a single label. From the front, in Japanese order, came a house or family name called a myoji, often taken from land the family held. Behind it, in older and more formal use, could sit a clan name called an uji, such as Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara or Tachibana, marking claimed descent from an ancient lineage. The personal name itself, the nanori or imina, was the part most likely to change. A boy received a childhood name, replaced it at his coming of age ceremony, called genpuku, and might change it again on promotion, on adoption into another house, on taking religious vows, or when a lord granted him a character from the lord's own name as a mark of favor. The verified historical names in this article belong to real men of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, including Oda Nobunaga (1534 to 1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537 to 1598), Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 to 1616), Takeda Shingen (1521 to 1573), Uesugi Kenshin (1530 to 1578), Miyamoto Musashi (about 1584 to 1645), Sanada Nobushige (1567 to 1615) and Date Masamune (1567 to 1636). The fiction names later in the article are invented for modern characters. None of them belonged to a historical person, and none of them should ever be presented as history.
By Emma Hudson
A historical samurai rarely carried one fixed name for life. The same man could appear in records under a childhood name, an adult name taken at his coming of age ceremony, a house name taken from land, an older clan name, a court title, and in some cases a religious name or a posthumous name. That is why lists of samurai names so often confuse readers. One person under two names can look like two people, and a name invented later by storytellers can sit in a list beside a documented name as if both carried the same weight.
This article keeps two things strictly apart. The first part explains how samurai naming actually worked and then gives verified historical names, each attached to a real person with dates and a one line identity. The second part gives invented names for fiction, clearly labeled as invented, built by following the historical patterns rather than by borrowing a real person’s full name. If you have come from reading about the wider world of Japanese names and traditions, our guides to Japanese gods and goddesses and to Japanese names that start with R cover neighboring ground, and this article stays focused on the warrior class and its naming habits.
How Samurai Names Worked
The clan name: uji
The oldest layer was the uji, the clan name. In early Japan, great lineages such as Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara and Tachibana stood at the top of society, and descent from one of them carried prestige for centuries. By the age of the samurai, many warrior houses claimed descent from one of these lines, sometimes on strong evidence and sometimes on genealogy constructed to order. Tokugawa Ieyasu, for example, claimed Minamoto descent when he changed his family name to Tokugawa in the 1560s, a claim that supported his fitness for high office. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, born to a foot soldier’s family with no samurai lineage at all, was granted the new uji Toyotomi by the imperial court when he reached the top, because a man of his standing needed a clan name and his birth could not supply one.
For a reader, the practical point is simple. When a full formal style gives a name such as Minamoto no Harunobu or Fujiwara no Genshin, the first element is the uji and the last is the personal name. The house name the man actually lived under, Takeda in the first case and Miyamoto in the second, may not appear in that formal style at all.
The house name: myoji
The myoji was the name a warrior house used day to day, and it very often came from land: a village, a district, a castle town or an estate the family held or came from. Oda came from Oda in Echizen, the family’s home ground. Takeda, Sanada, Date, Tokugawa and Matsudaira all began as place names before they were famous surnames. Branches of a family took new myoji from new land, which is one reason the same wider kin group can appear under several surnames in the same century.
Holding a myoji, and being allowed to use it publicly along with the right to wear two swords, was a mark of samurai status. Ordinary people were not generally permitted to use a surname in public during the Tokugawa period, whatever family names existed in private. Only in the Meiji period did that change for everyone: commoners were permitted to use surnames publicly in 1870, and surname use became compulsory in 1875. The modern picture of every Japanese person carrying one fixed family name is therefore much younger than the samurai era itself.
The personal name: nanori and imina
The personal name, read with the special name readings called nanori, was the most changeable layer. You will also see it called the imina, the true name. In formal life the true name was used sparingly. Addressing a superior by his imina could be presumptuous, so documents and conversation often used a title, a court office, a nickname or a common use name instead. This is why a figure can be famous under a name that was not, strictly, his personal name at all. Takeda Shingen is the clearest case in this article: Shingen was a Buddhist dharma name he took in the 1550s, while his formal personal name remained Harunobu for the rest of his life.
Personal names were often built from meaningful characters, and families reused favored characters across generations. A lord might grant one character of his own name to a retainer or a son in law, so the character nobu, for example, runs through the Oda and Sanada families, and the character yasu runs through the Matsudaira line. Reading a name character by character can therefore reveal alliances and loyalties, not just taste.
Childhood names and the coming of age ceremony
Samurai boys began life with a childhood name, often ending in maru or chiyo. Oda Nobunaga was Kipposhi as a child. Tokugawa Ieyasu was Takechiyo, a childhood name handed down among Matsudaira heirs. Takeda Shingen was Katsuchiyo. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was Hiyoshimaru. Miyamoto Musashi, by tradition, was Bennosuke.
At genpuku, the coming of age ceremony, the boy’s hair was dressed in adult style, he received an adult personal name, and a senior figure acted as his eboshi oya, the sponsor who placed the court cap on his head. The adult name sometimes borrowed a character from the sponsor or from the shogun. Takeda Harunobu received the character haru from the name of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiharu. From that point the childhood name was set aside, which is why a biography that mixes sources from different decades can look as if it describes two different young men.
Name changes across a life
Adult names changed too, and each change usually marked something real. The triggers included promotion and new court rank, adoption into another house, marriage alliances, taking Buddhist vows, disgrace or rehabilitation, and a deliberate break with a former lord. Tokugawa Ieyasu is the textbook case. Born Matsudaira Takechiyo, he became Matsudaira Motonobu at his coming of age in 1556, then Matsudaira Motoyasu, taking a character associated with his grandfather and shedding one linked to his Imagawa overlords, then Matsudaira Ieyasu as he asserted independence, and finally Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1566 or 1567, when he changed his family name itself and claimed ancient descent to match his new standing. Four or five name forms, one man, each step recording a change in his political position.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi changed names for the opposite reason: he was climbing from nowhere. Born Hiyoshimaru with no surname, he served under the name Kinoshita Tokichiro, later took the surname Hashiba, combining characters from the names of two senior Oda generals, and was finally granted the uji Toyotomi by the court in the 1580s. His name history is a career ladder written in surnames.
Adoption deserves a special note, because it was a normal political tool rather than an exception. A house with no suitable heir adopted a son, often an adult, who then took the house name. Uesugi Kenshin was born Nagao Kagetora, fourth son of a Nagao house that served the Uesugi. Adopted into the Uesugi, he became Uesugi Masatora, then Uesugi Terutora, and is best known by Kenshin, the religious name he used in later life. A reader who searches for him under only one of those names will miss parts of his record.
Religious and posthumous names add a final layer. A warrior who took vows might use a dharma name in place of his personal name, as Shingen and Kenshin both did. After death, a great figure could receive a posthumous name: Tokugawa Ieyasu was deified and is enshrined under the name Tosho Daigongen. These names are real, but they are not the names the men answered to as young soldiers, and a careful article should say which kind of name it is using.
Verified Historical Samurai Names
Every entry in this section is a documented historical person. Dates are given as ranges, and where a famous form of the name is not the man’s birth name, that is stated rather than smoothed over.
Oda Nobunaga (1534 to 1582)
Warlord of Owari who began the unification of Japan, took Kyoto in 1568, and was killed by his own general Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnoji in 1582. His childhood name was Kipposhi, and he took the adult style Oda Saburo Nobunaga in 1546. His house name Oda came from the family’s home ground in Echizen, while the family claimed descent from the Taira in clan terms, a clean example of myoji and uji pointing in different directions.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537 to 1598)
The second of the three great unifiers, who rose from a foot soldier’s family to rule Japan and completed the conquest of the country by 1590. Born Hiyoshimaru with no surname, he served as Kinoshita Tokichiro, rose as Hashiba Hideyoshi, and was granted the clan name Toyotomi by the imperial court. No other name in this list changed so completely, because no other career in it started so low.
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 to 1616)
Founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, appointed shogun in 1603 after victory at Sekigahara in 1600. Born Matsudaira Takechiyo, he passed through the forms Motonobu and Motoyasu and the family name change from Matsudaira to Tokugawa before settling as Tokugawa Ieyasu. His shogunate lasted until 1868, which is why his final name form is the one on shrines, schoolbooks and the city of Edo’s whole era.
Takeda Shingen (1521 to 1573)
Daimyo of Kai, famed as the Tiger of Kai, who conquered much of Shinano and fought his rival Uesugi Kenshin in the series of battles at Kawanakajima between 1553 and 1564. His childhood name was Katsuchiyo, his formal adult name was Takeda Harunobu, and Shingen, the name everyone knows, was a Buddhist dharma name he adopted in the 1550s. His formal name remained Harunobu even while the dharma name took over in common use.
Uesugi Kenshin (1530 to 1578)
Daimyo of Echigo, famed as the Dragon of Echigo, and Shingen’s great rival at Kawanakajima. Born Nagao Kagetora, he was adopted into the Uesugi house and became Uesugi Masatora and then Uesugi Terutora, taking characters from the names of shoguns as marks of honor. Kenshin was his religious name. Three surnames and names across one life make him the strongest warning in this article against assuming that a changed name means a different man.
Miyamoto Musashi (about 1584 to 1645)
Swordsman, duelist and author of The Book of Five Rings, written in his final years and completed shortly before his death in 1645. His birth year is traditionally given as 1584 and is not certain. His full formal style, Shinmen Musashi no Kami Fujiwara no Genshin, shows the layers at work: a house name, a title linked to Musashi province, the Fujiwara clan name, and the personal name Genshin. The short form Miyamoto Musashi, the one the world uses, keeps only the house name and a common use personal name.
Sanada Nobushige (1567 to 1615)
Samurai of Shinano, second son of Sanada Masayuki, who defended Ueda Castle against Tokugawa forces in 1600 and died fighting for the Toyotomi side at the Siege of Osaka in 1615, where the forward fortification he built, the Sanada maru, held off a major assault. He is far better known as Sanada Yukimura, but that name is not documented in his lifetime: historical records and his own letters call him Nobushige, and Yukimura appeared later in Edo period military fiction. He belongs in the historical list under Nobushige, with Yukimura labeled honestly as a later storyteller’s name that fame has kept.
Date Masamune (1567 to 1636)
Daimyo who founded Sendai and ruled it from 1600 until his death, the most powerful lord of the northern Tohoku region under the early Tokugawa shogunate. His childhood name was Bontenmaru. He lost the sight in one eye after smallpox as a child and was known by the epithet Dokuganryu, the One Eyed Dragon of Oshu. An epithet like this was a reputation, not a legal name, but it traveled further than most legal names ever did.
Reading this list with care
Three cautions apply to every name above. First, dates in this period come from a calendar Japan later converted, so a birth date can appear a year apart in different references, as with Masamune, whose birth is sometimes given as 1566 by traditional age reckoning and 1567 by modern conversion. Second, several of these men are surrounded by legend laid down in Edo period stories, and deeds from those stories, including the famous tale of Kenshin riding into Shingen’s camp for single combat, should be read as tradition rather than verified fact. Third, name order in this article follows the modern English convention of family name first for Japanese historical figures, the same order used in Japanese, so Oda is the house name and Nobunaga the personal name throughout. Readers comparing Japanese given names more broadly may also find our list of Japanese names that start with Z useful.
Fiction Samurai Names, Clearly Labeled as Invented
The names in this section are invented for this article. None of them belonged to a historical person. They are built by following the historical patterns set out above: a myoji that sounds like a place a family could hold, paired with a personal name built from the kinds of characters samurai families actually used, including nobu, yasu, masa, katsu, shige, tada, taka, hide and yoshi.
Invented names built on historical patterns
- Kawase Nobuyasu: a riverbank house name with a personal name joining the trust character found in the Oda line and the peace character found in the Matsudaira line.
- Hoshino Masakatsu: a house name suggesting a field under the stars, paired with a personal name meaning correctness and victory.
- Takamine Shigetada: a house name built on a high peak, paired with a personal name joining weight and loyalty.
- Morishita Hidekatsu: a house name meaning below the forest, paired with a personal name joining excellence and victory.
- Iwahara Tadahiro: a house name built on a rocky plain, paired with a personal name joining loyalty and breadth.
- Shirakawa Yoshinobu: a house name built on a white river, paired with a personal name joining good fortune and trust.
- Akutsu Takamasa: a house name suggesting a harbor inlet, paired with a personal name joining height and correctness.
- Nagamine Katsushige: a house name built on a long ridge, paired with a personal name joining victory and weight.
Each of these can carry a childhood name and a name change, just as the historical names did. Kawase Nobuyasu might begin life as Kawase Senmaru and take the adult name at genpuku. Shirakawa Yoshinobu might change one character after adoption into a related house. A name history like that gives a fiction character the same layered identity the real men had, without stealing any real man’s name.
What was wrong with ready made fantasy name lists
Many quick lists of samurai names for fiction mix Japanese personal names with English fantasy surnames, producing combinations such as a Japanese given name followed by a compound like Stonefield, Bladewind or Stormfall. Those surnames are not Japanese, do not follow the myoji pattern, and would not have existed in the period. They are not harmful as pure fantasy, but they should never be mistaken for Japanese naming practice, and a writer aiming at a Japanese setting will get a more believable result from a place based myoji and a character based personal name, as in the invented list above.
Choosing a samurai name for fiction
Start with the house. Give your character a myoji that sounds like land his family could hold, because that is how the historical house names began. Then build the personal name from characters with meanings that fit the character or his family’s hopes for him, remembering that families reused favored characters across generations, so brothers and cousins in your story can plausibly share one character in their names. Decide whether the character changes names at genpuku, on adoption or on promotion, since a name change is a strong and historically grounded story beat. Finally, do not give an unrelated fiction character the full name of a famous historical person. Writing about Oda Nobunaga as a historical character is legitimate. Dressing an invented hero in his exact name borrows a real reputation for a story that never happened and confuses every reader who later meets the real man. Readers who enjoy the darker end of name lore may also like our guide to demon names, which keeps the same habit of separating documented tradition from invention.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did samurai have last names?
Yes, in two forms. A samurai carried a myoji, the house name used day to day and often taken from land, and in formal use he could also carry an uji, an older clan name such as Minamoto or Taira. In Japanese order the family name comes first, so in Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tokugawa is the family name and Ieyasu the personal name. Public use of a surname was a samurai and noble privilege for much of the period. Commoners were permitted to use surnames publicly only in 1870, and surnames became compulsory for everyone in 1875.
Why did samurai change their names so often?
Because a name recorded status, and status kept changing. A boy replaced his childhood name at genpuku, his coming of age ceremony. An adult might change his personal name on promotion, take a new family name on adoption into another house, receive a character from his lord’s name as a mark of favor, adopt a religious name after taking vows, or mark a break with a former allegiance. Tokugawa Ieyasu used at least four name forms across his life, and each one maps onto a step in his rise from hostage to shogun.
Was Sanada Yukimura a real name?
The man was real, the famous name is not documented from his lifetime. The historical samurai who died at the Siege of Osaka in 1615 was recorded in documents and in his own letters as Sanada Nobushige. The name Yukimura appeared later, in Edo period military fiction, and became so popular that it displaced the documented name in common use. He is the single best example of why historical and fiction names must be kept apart.
What is the difference between a nanori, an imina and a common use name?
Nanori are the special readings used for the characters in personal names, and the term is often used for the personal name itself. Imina means the true name, the formal personal name that was used sparingly and not casually spoken to a superior. In daily life a samurai was often addressed by a title, an office, a nickname or a common use name instead. Miyamoto Musashi illustrates all of this: his formal style ended in the personal name Genshin, while the world knows him by the house name Miyamoto and the common use name Musashi.
Can I use a historical samurai name for my fiction character?
You can write about the historical person under his real name, and you can borrow a single element, such as a house name or one character, as inspiration. Giving an unrelated invented character a famous full name, such as Oda Nobunaga or Date Masamune, invites confusion and borrows a documented life for an invented one. The invented names in this article are free to use and follow the historical patterns, so they will sit more honestly in a Japanese setting.
Did samurai names have meanings?
Usually, yes. Personal name characters were chosen for meaning, including trust, loyalty, peace, victory, correctness and good fortune, and families reused characters across generations or received one from a lord or a shogun. House names usually had a plainer origin: the land the family came from or held. A full samurai name therefore often reads as a short biography, a place the family held joined to a hope or a loyalty the family wanted recorded.
Sources & references
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oda Nobunaga biography: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oda-Nobunaga?s=09
- Japan Society, The Epoch of Unification (1568 to 1615): https://japansociety.org/news/the-epoch-of-unification-1568-1615-ad/
- World History Encyclopedia, Oda Nobunaga: https://www.worldhistory.org/Oda_Nobunaga/
- Samurai Museum Berlin, Sanada Yukimura (Sanada Nobushige, 1567 to 1615): https://samuraimuseum.de/en/learn/sanada-yukimura-japans-bravest-warrior-1567-1615/
- Miyamoto Musashi reference site, Who Was Miyamoto Musashi (formal name, about 1584 to 1645, The Book of Five Rings): https://miyamoto-musashi.org/en/musashi/
- New World Encyclopedia, Takeda Shingen (Takeda Harunobu, 1521 to 1573): https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Takeda_Shingen
- Japan Reference, Japanese family names, myoji and uji, and the Meiji surname reforms of 1870 and 1875: https://jref.com/articles/japanese-family-names.31/?page=3#comments
- EBSCO Research Starters, Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; name forms Motonobu and Motoyasu): https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/tokugawa-ieyasu
