back to article Simulation reveals all Japanese will have the same surname by 2531

A simulation run by a Japanese professor and released on Monday revealed that by the year 2531, everyone in Japan will have the surname Sato. Not that there's anything wrong with the name Sato, of course. It's currently the most popular surname in Japan with more than 1.5 percent of the population proud to call it their own – …

  1. Coen Dijkgraaf

    Typo?

    "Yoshida found that by 2446, over half of the population would be called Sato. And by 2351, everyone would bear the name."

    Should that last one be 2531?

    Ditto for "By 2351, the Japanese population was projected at 281,866."

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, they aren't supposed to be working so much

    This is the states way of saying you need to get home and make more citizens...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, they aren't supposed to be working so much

      Some are actually very attractive, so we could give them help?

      1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        Re: Well, they aren't supposed to be working so much

        Not if they want to retain the right to be called Japanese citizens. There are some very tight restrictions on whom Japan is prepared to claim as one of their own.

  3. ldo

    Don’t Call Them “Surnames”

    Better terminology is “family name” and “given name”. Which one comes first varies between cultures. Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Hungarian cultures (that I can think of off the top of my head) commonly put the family name first. And then some add a Western-style name on top of their Chinese name, so the family name ends up in the middle.

    For this reason, I like the French convention of writing the family name in all caps. For example, YOSHIDA Hiroshi; Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng; LUGOSI Bela; Laura DOBBERSTEIN.

    See how much clearer that is, in avoiding confusion while respecting cultural norms?

    1. MarkTriumphant

      Re: Don’t Call Them “Surnames”

      I like and agree with your suggestion that family names could be written all caps. However, I do not see a problem with using "Surname". It does not mean last name, as you imply. It means family name, and has done so for several centuries. It may not be used in other cultures, but they are not generally speaking English, so use different words anyway.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Don’t Call Them “Surnames”

      But then you run the risk of marginalising those who don't use the Roman alphabet and/or don't have capital letters in their writing system :-)

      1. ldo

        Re: those who don't use the Roman alphabet and/or don't have capital letters

        Dang. There’s a valid point. But then, would the writing system itself be the cue in those cases? For example, it might be fair to say that all those cultures that use writing systems based on Chinese characters put the family name first?

    3. DuncanLarge

      Re: Don’t Call Them “Surnames”

      The French all caps surnames was something I learned to hate when setting up user accounts, especially as they insisted on NOT using a comma to denote the fact that they had a habit of putting the surname first!

      I had loads of accounts that needed renaming and it took me a while to figure out why they were doing this.

      1. ldo

        Re: something I learned to hate when setting up user accounts

        It would be so simple to fix the code to look for the part(s) in all-caps, and recognize that as the family name. That’s why it’s such a useful convention.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >Yoshida found that by 2446, over half of the population would be called Sato. And by 2351, everyone would bear the name.

    I can forgive the occasional typo in these articles (almost every one has some, which is pretty bad) but fudging 200 years is a pretty bad look. I'm starting to really believe these articles are not proof-read, because that's a really easy one to spot.

    1. spireite Silver badge

      Is it that esay to spot?

      1. Mishak Silver badge

        Probably just down to a faulty ekyborad.

  5. DS999 Silver badge
    Trollface

    At the rate Japan's population is shrinking

    That might be true by 2531 because there will be only one person left

    1. Rafael #872397
      Trollface

      Re: At the rate Japan's population is shrinking

      Round it down to 2525 (if man is still alive...)

  6. Little Mouse

    "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

    I'm stating the obvious, I know, but you can find tiny discrepancies in the noise of almost any data set and twist it to mean anything you like.

    A few notes on the statistics would have been helpful. To what extent were the numbers meaningful?

    I'm reminded of a similar (kind of) joke news article in Viz back in the day, which extrapolated the difference in length of two near-identical bees, to warn us of a near future where we could all soon expect to be terrorised by foot-long killer flying monsters

    1. phils

      Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6LOWKVq5sQ

    2. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

      Assuming this is not an April Fool story, I do wonder whether he checked the statistics for the growth in proportion of other family names like the second one, Suzuki? If Suzuki were growing at a rate just slightly greater than Sato, then how long would it take to overtake Sato?

      Taking the growth of just one name in a competitive system is clearly inadequate. (Sorry, shoddy use of stats always annoys me.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

        I'm in the "this is bollocks" camp. The UK and a good number of other countries have had a culture for centuries where married couples have the same family/surname, and we're not all called the same. Would seem to me that the assumptions are so far off the mark as to be laughable, undermining the point he's supposedly trying to make.

        One curious thing about the most common British surnames is that five of the top ten most common are characteristically (albeit not uniquely) Welsh - Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, Thomas. Not sure what to make of that.

        1. tiggity Silver badge

          Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

          Generally agree, though UK does have a decent diversity of surnames & article implied Japan does not

          ..and people can easily change surname in UK if they do not like it (many of my Jewish friends / colleagues have anglicised versions of their original names as their ancestors came to UK relatively recently e.g. due to the Nazis or other mainland Europe persecution and altered name to fit in e.g. may have changed from Schneider to Stewart to give a real example where a very "trad" UK name was picked, hiding essentially all hint of original Jewish name) - and going back further a lot of "rude" or irritating surnames were altered to become less offensive e.g. big drop in the surnames Cock, Smellie, Daft, Onion, Willy to name but a few.

          Although there's less of a trend for this now in UK - get some people keeping their old surname, also see couples adopting a double (or more) barrel name (combining the surnames of both partners into a new surname)

          Plus, quite a few people will revert to old surname after divorce in UK (& I think this is the case in Japan too, which has about a 1/3 divorce rate).

          - and it gets complicated with kids, in many cases in UK children keep surname they had when born even when parent(s) remarry - but some do change their names to "new" married surname (plus, after divorces some kids change their name to that of "most preferred" parent surname). Not sure what teh scenario is for kids surnames in japan.

          So, a whole host of name "churn" potential

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

            "Generally agree, though UK does have a decent diversity of surnames & article implied Japan does not"

            Now, yes, I'm not sure that the diversity of surnames was as true going back over the period say 1750-1900. A quick check (admittedly using a well known search engine and looking for a pre-packed answer) shows that back in the 1881 Census, Smith was the surname of 1.41% of the population, whereas it is now 1%. Presumably there was a maths prof in Victorian England who claimed that in a few short years we'd all be called Smith. And he was wrong too.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

          "One curious thing about the most common British surnames is that five of the top ten most common are characteristically (albeit not uniquely) Welsh - Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, Thomas. Not sure what to make of that."

          The Welsh males are hung like donkeys? There's not much else to do in the valleys? Sheep are in decline?

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

            I approve of that answer!

          2. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
            Headmaster

            Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

            "Welsh" surnames were arbitrarily allocated by the English conquerors as they could not pronounce the locals' real names. So they used common English names.

        3. Jamie Jones Silver badge

          Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

          "One curious thing about the most common British surnames is that five of the top ten most common are characteristically (albeit not uniquely) Welsh - Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, Thomas. Not sure what to make of that."

          I don't know either, but at lest It also proves that it's not just sheep we shag.

          Does Japan worry about this sort of thing? : https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/OC364987

        4. IceC0ld

          Re: "He then assumed a constant growth rate"...

          [quote] One curious thing about the most common British surnames is that five of the top ten most common are characteristically (albeit not uniquely) Welsh - Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, Thomas. Not sure what to make of that. [/quote]

          I think we CAN make something of that, the Welsh love shagging :o)

          and, apparently, not just the sheep

  7. HkraM
    Joke

    Released on Monday eh?

    So this was released on Monday 1st April? Hmmm, nothing suspicious there...

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Released on Monday eh?

      Sssh, you'll give it away

    2. dave 76

      Re: Released on Monday eh?

      "So this was released on Monday 1st April? Hmmm, nothing suspicious there..."

      Of course, you are assuming April Fools Day is a thing in Japan, it's not.

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Making predictions half a millennium into the future is a good idea. Nobody's going to call you on it if you're wrong.

    Mine is that by 2531 all the Japanese volcanoes will be erupting, covering all the islands in lava & it will be quite uninhabitable. Just wait and see.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      You're waiting until 2531 for the apocalypse? By around 2250 the kaiju will arrive. It won't be pretty, but it will be epic.

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      "Making predictions half a millennium into the future is a good idea. Nobody's going to call you on it if you're wrong."

      Not true. Nostradamus was making predictions just under 500 years ago and people are always dissing the guy!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like