Jap Surnames

While wandering through other people's blogs, I stumbled upon this interesting comment (or theory) about the origins of jap surnames. Rather dark but seems plausible too. Not sure if all of it is true or just someone trying to be mischievious. According to Fyen, the Germans had a similar policy during the war and the women had to consider it a national service. The blogger had taken to write this in chinese so I am doing a translation of it here for benefit of those who struggle with chinese.

"Emiri's jap name... 吉川 エミリ一 ... lucky river work three ? one...Weird right?! Well there's a reason why the japs have names like that lah.
日本人姓氏来源...
日本古来多战戈, 少壮男丁都征軍, 没结婚生子便战毙, 矮倭人丁日愈稀少。
天皇就出了一个国策, 让所有的男人不论何时何地, 都可以随便跟任何女人发生关系, 来保持人口的出生率。
女人都习惯了"无论何时何地"的那种方式, 乾脆就背著枕头,被单出门。後来就成了现在所谓的"和服"。
女人被人"无论何时何地"後，不知对方姓氏就生下小孩, 只好以被肏场地为名。
结果出现了"井上"、"田中"、"松下"、"渡边"、"山口"、"竹下"、"近藤"…等等。"

Translation:

"The origins of Japanese surnames...
Japanese feudal times were fraught with wars, strong young men were enlisted into the army and died at battle before they married or have children, leading to reducing numbers of men as days passed.

The emperor thus devised a national plan, to permit all men at any time and any place seek a physical relationship with any woman, to keep up the population figure.

As the women resigned to the way of "any time any place", they simply piggybacked their pillow and bed sheet along when they leave the house. Eventually, that became the present day "kimono".
After a woman having been dealt with at "any time any place", gave birth to a child with no idea of the name of the other party, was left with no choice but to come up with a name for the child based on the scene of the encounter.

As a result, the appearance of surnames in kanji such as (which in chinese reads as) above well (井上) 、within field "田中"、beneath tree "松下"、alongside crossing "渡边"、 mountain opening "山口"、 under bamboo "竹下"、 near rattan "近藤"…etc."

The life for people in those days must be surreal. Can you imagine what if you discover your first traceable forefather was a ..um..arh..bastard conceived in ..uh..exotic nature. (Die lah, now cannot let my jap friends know about my blog already. Sure lose friends wan.) What a history to have and to bear in your name, though it might not be any fault of your fault. Some people probably don't care.

I imagined I would be quite disturbed, especially having been used to the idea of having a recorded family tree going back some 17 generations in China, which look quite respectable. It spreads over several books and the family published multiple copies some years back to have them distributed to the various households of the relatives. Anyway, it probably isn't surprising if there are a lot of unwritten stories. After all, the genealogy only recorded sons. Funnily, I have been added, the very first female child, honoured for having finished university education. (sigh, so now I have to behave). We even have a family motto (somewhere) from which each character becomes the middle name of succeeding generations. Let me encourage you all to start your own book of family tree. It builts an identity which your future generations can refer back to. I think it is quite powerful but most people take it for granted or unwilling to do what is necessary to honour it.

On another track, it would be interesting to ask various other nationalities how surnames originated in their culture. I heard the English took theirs from their profession. In China, I think it was given by the Emperor (at least some were; will have to ask my father about that). The Indians have their link to the caste. Hmm..I wonder if any academia has done studies in this area. It would be intriguing.