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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Japanese : ‘forest hill’; mostly found in western Japan and the island of Okinawa. One family of Satsuma (now Kagoshima prefecture) was samurai. A few bearers may have taken the name of the city of Morioka, in Iwate prefecture in the far north, which is written with characters meaning ‘prosperous hill’.

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