Japanese clans

This is a list of Japanese clans. The ancient clans (gozoku) mentioned in the Nihonshoki and Kojiki lost their political power before the Heian period. Instead of gozoku, new aristocracies, Kuge families emerged in this period. In the late Heian period, warrior class clans (Samurai) gradually gained power and subsequently dominated the country.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Ancient clan names

There are ancient-era clan names called Uji-na (氏名) or Honsei (本姓).

Imperial Clan

Mon of The Imperial House

Four noble clans

Gempeitōkitsu (源平藤橘), 4 noble clans of Japan:

Mon of Taira clan

Noble clans

Native clans

Immigrant clans

Newly created noble clan

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:

Other clans and families

Mon of Ryukyu Kingdom

Okinawa:


Sacerdotal clans:

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Japanese clans.

Notes

  1. ↑ Nelson, John K. (2000). Enduring Identities: The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan, pp. 67-69.
  2. ↑ Cranston, Edwin A. (1998). A Waka Anthology, p. 513.
  3. ↑ Grapard, Allan G. (1992). The protocol of the gods, p. 42.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, January 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.