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Japanese clans

This is a list of Japanese clans. The old clans (gōzoku) mentioned in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki lost their political power before the Heian period, during which new aristocracies and families, kuge, emerged in their place. After the Heian period, the samurai warrior clans gradually increased in importance and power until they came to dominate the country after the founding of the first shogunate.

Japan traditionally practiced cognatic primogeniture, or male-line inheritance in regard to passing down titles and estates. By allowing adult adoption, or for men to take their wife's name and be adopted into her family served as a means to pass down an estate to a family without any sons, Japan has managed to retain continuous family leadership for many of the below clans, the imperial family, and even ordinary family businesses.

The ability for Japanese families to track their lineage over successive generations plays a far more important role than simply having the same name as another family, as many commoners did not use a family name prior to the Meiji Restoration, and many simply the name of the lord of their village, or the name of their domain, and may not necessarily have been a retainer to the clan. Other clan names are based on common geographic features or other arbitrary words that didn't necessarily indicate clan membership.

Many families also adopted sons from other families or married their daughters into other families to cement ties with a larger kin group outside of those with the same name as the main family line, called ', a clan or family relationship built around both blood and maternal relations. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself had adopted two dozen children of allies in addition to his 16 acknowledged children.

The Meiji Restoration sought to dismantle the clan structure, giving clan leaders titles of nobility to inspire loyalty to the emperor rather than individual clans. However those familial relationships built over multiple generations still maintained their ties, first as monbatsu, then with industrialization, evolved into the pre-war zaibatsu, which were formed by these same inter-clan relationships. With the abolishment of the kazoku in 1947, they reverted to their unofficial keibatsu, and elements of which can be seen today in political families such as the Satō–Kishi–Abe family, with family ties to Marquess Inoue Kaoru, Viscount Ōshima Yoshimasa, and pre-war Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka, all descendants of lower ranking Chōshū samurai families who benefited from the clan's outsized influence in the Meiji era government, and effectively created their own new clan, despite the lack of official title.

Ancient clan names

There are ancient-era clan names called or .

Imperial House

Four noble clans

, 4 noble clans of Japan:

Noble clans

Aristocratic family names

From the late ancient era onward, the family name (Myōji/苗字 or 名字) had been commonly used by samurai to denote their family line instead of the name of the ancient clan that the family line belongs to (uji-na/氏名 or honsei/本姓), which was used only in the official records in the Imperial court. Kuge families also had used their family name (Kamei/家名) for the same purpose. Each of samurai families is called "[family name] clan (氏)" as follows and they must not be confused with ancient clan names. The list below is a list of various aristocratic families whose families served as Shugo, Shugodai, Jitō, and Daimyo
  • Ii clan () – descended from Fujiwara Hokke; famous for Ii Naotora, Ii Naomasa and Ii Naosuke.
  • Iio clan () – cadet branch of the Hosokawa clan; famous for Iio Noritsura.
  • Ikeda clan () – descended from Seiwa Genji; no direct relation to other clans called Ikeda.
  • Ikeda clan of Iyo () – no direct relation to other clans called Ikeda.
  • Ikeda clan of Mino () – no direct relation to other clans called Ikeda.
  • Ikeda clan of Sasaki () – cadet branch of the Sasaki clan; no direct relation to other clans called Ikeda.
  • Ikeda clan of Settsu () – descended from the Ki clan (disputed), no direct relation to other clans called Ikeda.
  • Imagawa clan () – cadet branch of the Ashikaga clan who descended from Seiwa Genji; famous for Imagawa Yoshimoto.
  • Inaba clan – cadet branch of the Kōno clan who descended from Prince Iyo, son of Emperor Kanmu.
  • Inoue clan of Shinano () – head family.
  • Inoue clan of Aki () – cadet branch.
  • Inoue clan of Mikawa () – cadet branch.
  • Ishida clan () – cadet branch of the Miura clan who descended from Kanmu Heishi (disputed). famous for Ishida Mitsunari
  • Ishikawa clan () – also known as Ishikawa Genji; descended from Seiwa Genji.
  • Ishimaki clan () – descended from Nanke.
  • Itō clan () – cadet branch of the Kudō clan who descended from Nanke.
  • YÅ«ki clan of Shimousa () – head family.
  • YÅ«ki clan of Shirakawa () – cadet branch.

Zaibatsu

Zaibatsu were the industrial and financial vertically integrated business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period until the end of World War II.

Sacerdotal clans

Ryukyu

Ryukyuan people are not Yamato people, but the Ryukyu Islands have been part of Japan since 1879.

Ryukyuan dynasties:

Immigrant clans

Toraijin is used to describe migrants in many contexts, from the original migration of a Yamato peoples to more recent migrants. According to the book Shinsen Shōjiroku compiled in 815, a total 326 out of 1,182 families in the Kinai area on Honshū were regarded as people with foreign genealogy. The book specifically encompasses immigrants from ancient Korea and China and that these families are considered notable, although not inherently noble.

Despite the book being highly regarded by many, there are certain claims that are under scrutiny by modern historians, and some corrections and revisions have been made over the recent years with certain clans of specific origins being classified differently.

Paekche (Korea)
  • Haruda clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Inoue clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan. Not to be confused with the Seiwa Genji Inoue clan.
  • Kawachinoaya clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Ōkura clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Sakanoue clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Nishiki clan (錦氏) – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Nishikibe clan (錦部氏) – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Takamuko clan (高向氏) – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan; famous for Takamuko no Kuromaro. Not to be confused with a different Takamuko clan of the same name that descends from Takenouchi no Sukune.
  • Tamura clan () – cadet branch of Yamatonoaya clan.
  • Yamatonofumi clan () – descended from the scholar Wani. Related to the Kawachinofumi clan.

Goguryeo (Korea)

  • Kifumi clan () – descended from King Yeongnyu of Goguryeo.
  • Koma clan () – descended from Jakkō, son of the last of Goguryeo, King Bojang of Goguryeo.
  • Kuwabara clan ()
  • Sena clan () – descended from Sena no Fukutoku (背奈福徳), son of King Yeongnyu of Goguryeo.
  • Toyohara clan ()
  • Yasaka clan ()
  • Yahamara clan ()

Silla (Korea)
  • Fujiki clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Hakura clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Hirata clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Kada clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Kawakatsu clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan, named after Hata no Kawakatsu.
  • Matsumuro clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Matsuo clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Matsushita clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Mikami clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Minami clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Mokusei clan (木星) – cadet branch of the Hata Clan.
  • Nishiōji clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Obata clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Ōkura clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Ōnishi clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Seo clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Tōgi clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Tsuchiyama clan () – cadet branch of Hata clan.
  • Koremune clan () – lateral branch of the Hata clan.
  • Fushimaru clan ()
  • Hine clan ()
  • Itoi clan () – descended from Amenohiboko, a prince of Silla who came to Japan in the 3rd or 4th century.
  • Maki clan ()
  • Ōtomo clan () – claims to be descended from Mantoku no Omi of Goguryeo. The clan later claimed descent from Emperor Gaozu, Ling, and Xian of Han, but recent Japanese research points this to be aggrandization and their true origin to be from Silla; no direct relation to the native Ōtomo clan () or feudal Ōtomo clan () of the same name.
  • Shiga clan (志賀氏) – cadet branch of Ōtomo clan through Ōtomo no Suguri (大友村主).
  • Tachibanamori clan () – descended from Amenohiboko, a prince of Silla who came to Japan in the 3rd or 4th century.
  • Tajima clan () – descended from Amenohiboko, a prince of Silla who came to Japan in the 3rd or 4th century.
  • Unabara clan ()

Kaya (Korea)

  • Arara clan ()
  • Hirata clan () – descended from Tsunugaarashito (都怒我阿羅斯等), a prince of Kaya.
  • Karabito clan ()
  • Michita clan ()
  • Ōchi clan () – descended from Tsunugaarashito (都怒我阿羅斯等), a prince of Kaya.
  • Tatara clan () – descended from Irigumo of Kaya.
  • Toyotsu clan ()

China

See also

Notes

References