Some people thought it was an April Fool's joke but it's all true: without changes to the obsolete civil code in force since the 19th century, by 2531 everyone in Japan will have the surname “Sato-san”.
The complaint comes from a study published on March 20th by Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, professor of economics at Tohoku University, and commissioned by the Think Name Project and the Asuniwa association which are fighting to legalize the possibility of choosing one's own surname.
According to Yoshida's calculations, the percentage of Japanese with the surname Sato increased 1.0083 times from 2022 to 2023. Assuming that this rate remains constant and that there is no change to the civil code requiring married couples to choose a single surname, nearly half the population in Japan will be known as “Sato-san” in 2446, a figure that will rise to 100 percent in the year 2531.
By changing the rules instead, the study predicts that by 2531 only 7.96 percent of the Japanese population will end up with the surname Sato. According to Yoshida, with a simple regulatory change, Japan will be able to maintain the diversity of surnames until its population becomes extinct.
Another discovery emerging from the research commissioned by the Think Name Project and the Asuniwa association in fact reveals that, if the decline of the Japanese population continues at the current rate, only 22 people will remain in the whole country in 3310.
The research is based on data available on the website Myoji-yurai.net, which in turn collects statistics relating to personal information from government institutions and operators who compile telephone directories. Currently, Sato is already the most common surname in Japan, carried by 1,529 percent of the Japanese population in 2023.
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