Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Japanese : ‘sedge plain’, found mostly in northeastern Japan; listed in the Shinsen shōjiroku as Sugahara. The family was prominent at court throughout the ninth century. Their most noted son, Sugawara no Michizane (845–903), was a famous scholar and poet who is now revered as the patron saint of scholarship. Some bearers of the name pronounce it Kanbara.