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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Japanese (Ōe) : variously written, usually with characters meaning ‘large inlet’; found mostly in western Japan and the Ryūkyūan island of Yaeyama. An ancient family of scholars and statesmen, one branch is ancestral to the Mori clan of Chōshū (now part of Yamaguchi prefecture). Listed in the Shinsen shōjiroku.

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