Family name origins & meanings
- Japanese : meaning ‘sedge’, the word for which is nowadays pronounced suge or suga. The surname is written variously, with characters used phonetically. It is a habitational name, taken from a village in the ancient region of Asuka (now part of Nara Prefecture).
- The name is no longer common, but it is important in Japanese history. According to the Shinsen shōjiroku, the family descended from the mythical Emperor Kōgen through the legendary hero-statesman Takenouchi no Sukune. Actually of Korean origin, the Soga had close ties with Korean immigrant families and enthusiastically supported the importation of Buddhism from Korea. Prince Regent Shōtoku (574–622), the “father of Japanese civilization”, was half Soga and married to a Soga princess. Heads of this family, beginning with Soga no Iname (d. 570), were leading scholars and all-powerful in Japanese politics for over a hundered years. They became too overbearing and violent, and finally the main branch of the family was crushed in the coup of 645, engineered by Nakatomi no Kamatari and the future Emperor Tenji (who was himself partly of Soga descent and was the husband of several Soga princesses). Several locales throughout Japan were named for resident Soga families; later, unrelated families took these habitational names as their own surnames.