Dramas about people with single-character surnames: Ban-san, Cho-san, Ko-san

Many Japanese surnames consist of two kanji characters, so when a single-character surname comes along, it makes me want to investigate its origin. However, three of the Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, and Tachibana clans, from which most Japanese people are said to derive their surnames, are single-character surnames, and single-character surnames like Mori, Tani, and Hara are common, so perhaps it's not such a topic to dwell on.

On the other hand, there are cases where surnames that originally consisted of two or three characters were reduced to one character. The Otomo clan, which produced court nobles such as Yakamochi during the Nara period, avoided using the name Otomo, which was the given name (imina, a given name that was considered taboo to use during one's lifetime) of Emperor Junna, and instead adopted the name Ban. Decades later, the Ban clan fell from power in the Otenmon Incident, marking the beginning of the decline of a prestigious family that had been in power since the ancient Yamato court. Many people have probably seen the national treasure "Ban Dainagon Ekotoba," which is believed to have been commissioned by Emperor Go-Shirakawa 300 years after the incident.

Although they fell from grace as court nobles, the Kimotsuki clan, who for a time competed with the Shimazu clan as a Sengoku daimyo in Osumi Province, claimed descent from the Ban clan. They were sent to Satsuma as local officials and later settled there, making them considerably older local lords than the Shimazu and Ito clans, who were appointed as jitō (land stewards) by Yoritomo or the Kamakura Shogunate and settled in the area. While the Shimazu and Ito clans continued as daimyo during the Edo period, the Kimotsuki clan remained high-ranking retainers of the Satsuma domain until the Meiji Restoration.

The Cho clan of Noto served as chief retainers for the Noto Hatakeyama clan during the Muromachi period, and in the Edo period, they became important retainers of one of the eight Maeda families, receiving a stipend of 33,000 koku, comparable to that of a minor daimyo, and were granted the title of baron after the Meiji Restoration. Their founder was Hasebe Nobutsura, who participated in Prince Mochihito's uprising but was captured by Taira no Kiyomori and exiled to Hino in Hoki Province.

Last year, while on a pilgrimage to Mt. Daisen, I visited historical sites related to Nobunaga in Hino Town, Tottori Prefecture. After the fall of the Taira clan, Nobutsura's achievements were recognized by Yoritomo, and he was appointed as the jitō (land steward) of Ōya Manor in Hugeshi District, Noto Province. Since then, his descendants changed their surname to Chō and survived the medieval and early modern periods, based at Anamizu Castle.

In Anamizu, the Hasebe Festival is held in the summer, and this year Takeshi Naito will be participating in the procession as Lord Nobuyuki. In Kanazawa, the post-war Hyakumangoku procession recreates the procession in which Lord Toshiie Maeda entered the domain, but this one is from the Kamakura period, so it has a different kind of prestige.

The equestrian warrior statue, a nationally important cultural property housed in the Kyoto National Museum, was long believed to be that of Ashikaga Takauji, but the latest prevailing theory is that it is actually that of Kō no Moronao.

The Ko clan was originally the Takashina clan, and it seems they were already using the name Ko by the end of the Heian period. The Great King of the Yamato Kingdom was once plagued by fierce internal conflicts, sometimes facing dilemmas over who should succeed to the throne. On the other hand, once the government stabilized, the number of imperial family members grew too large, leading to problems with their treatment and maintenance costs. How to secure an appropriate number of imperial family members has always been and remains an important issue. The Takashina clan was given to Prince Asukabe (great-grandson of Emperor Tenmu and grandson of Fujiwara no Fuhito), the son of Prince Nagaya, whose father was Prince Takechi, son of Emperor Tenmu, when he was demoted to commoner status.

From the Heian period onward, the surnames given to those demoted to commoner status were consistently either Minamoto or Taira, but until the Nara period, various surnames (Nagaoka, Tachibana, Ariwara, etc.) were given. Generally, the Minamoto surname was used for sons of emperors or princes who were demoted, while the Taira surname was used for princes or kings who were demoted. However, the Minamoto surname is associated with a closer connection to the imperial lineage than the Taira surname.

The Takashina clan remained largely inconspicuous as middle-ranking nobles for a long time, but they enjoyed a brief period of prosperity when Takashina Takako gave birth to Teishi, who became the principal wife of Fujiwara no Michitaka and empress consort of Emperor Ichijo, and when Prince Atsuyasu was expected to become the next emperor. In the drama "Hikaru Kimi e" two years ago, Yuka Itaya played the role of the Takashina Takako.

As mentioned above, Takashina changed his surname to Ko and became a samurai, but by the Kamakura period he had already settled as a steward for the Ashikaga family and seems to have been preparing for his role in the next Ashikaga shogunate. Ko no Moronao, famous for his villainous image, is being re-evaluated these days, and there is no doubt that he was a capable person who handled the practical affairs of the early Muromachi shogunate and supported Takauji during the Nanboku-cho conflict. In the "Taiheiki" 35 years ago, he was played by a young Akira Emoto.

Kō no Moronao and his family cornered the Southern Court and, after the Kannō Disturbance, seized the strongest power within the shogunate. Up to this point, they had the potential to become the Hōjō clan of the Muromachi shogunate. However, Moronao and his family were later killed by Uesugi Yoshinori, who sought revenge for his father's death. The surviving members of the Kō family continued to serve successive shoguns as stewards of the shogunate, but they quietly disappeared from the forefront of history.

The Fujiwara clan, whose numbers became excessive from the late Heian period, adopted the name of a street that ran through their Kyoto residence, and medieval samurai families adopted the name of the land they owned as their surname. Toyotomi Hideyoshi also combined the names of Shibata and Niwa to form the name Hashiba, so at that level, it's not so strange for Hasebe to use "Cho" and Takashina to use "Ko." The origin of Rai Sanyo's "Rai" is currently unknown, but if anyone knows, please let me know.