Power-law Distribution of Family Names in Japanese Societies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the distribution of Japanese family names and finds that their frequency and diversity follow power-law scaling laws across different regions, revealing underlying patterns in societal naming conventions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the distribution of family names in Japan follows power-law scaling laws, a novel insight into societal naming structures.

Findings

Number of family names scales as a power-law with population size

Frequency of family names decreases as size increases following a power-law

Size-rank relation of family names also exhibits power-law behavior

Abstract

We study the frequency distribution of family names. From a common data base, we count the number of people who share the same family name. This is the size of the family. We find that (i) the total number of different family names in a society scales as a power-law of the population, (ii) the total number of family names of the same size decreases as the size increases with a power-law and (iii) the relation between size and rank of a family name also shows a power-law. These scaling properties are found to be consistent for five different regional communities in Japan.