What Is the Difference Between "Senzo" and "Sosen"? What Tracing a Surname Reveals

01Whom do we mean by "gosenzo-sama"?

When we pray at the soreisha (a household altar for ancestral spirits) or visit a family grave, we naturally use the word gosenzo-sama. But how far back, and how wide, does that word reach?

If you open a dictionary, senzo and sosen are explained in almost the same way. The Digital Daijisen dictionary defines senzo as the first generation of a family line, or the past members of that line, and sosen likewise as the first generation of a line, or the generations before one's parents¹. So on paper, both words include both "the first one" and "everyone since."

02How I use the two words

With that in mind, I keep the two words apart in my own practice. Senzo is the one person who first took the family name. Sosen is everyone who carried life from that person down to the present self. This is not a dictionary definition but the way I hold the words when I face my ancestors.

In everyday Japanese today, however, senzo is almost always used in the broad sense, the same as sosen. So on this blog I write gosenzo-sama to mean all the people who connected the line. What matters far more than the definition is being able to picture both "the first one" and "everyone who carried it on" when you stand before the grave.

03Tracing the surname Sakuma

So who is that "first one"? Let me use Sakuma, the surname connected to me, as an example.

The widely accepted view is that Sakuma comes from an old place name, Sakuma, written 狭隈, explained as combining sa (narrow) and kuma (a winding, recessed place), meaning a narrow valley where a river bends. This is the explanation given in Ōta Akira's Seishi Kakei Daijiten (Dictionary of Surnames and Family Lines)². Other theories exist, but the place-name origin is the best known.

The place of origin is Sakuma-gō in Heguri District of Awa Province, which is today Sakuma in the town of Kyonan, Awa District, Chiba Prefecture. The place name is still on the map.

The main line is said to descend from the Miura clan, a branch of the Kanmu Heishi (descendants of Emperor Kanmu who received the Taira name). Sakuma Iemura, a grandson of Miura Yoshiaki, is said to be the first person to take the name Sakuma. If we follow this tradition, the senzo of the Sakuma family connected to me is that one man who named himself after the land of Sakuma.

That said, the Sakuma name does not have a single origin. There are also lines that claim descent from the Fujiwara clan, and a separate Sakuma family of Mutsu Province, among others. I will not state here which line my own Sakuma family belongs to. Even so, simply knowing that one person once named himself after a place called Sakuma, and that life has flowed from him to now, changes the weight of my own name.

04Taking an interest in your name is knowing yourself

Tracing a surname like this brings you face to face with all kinds of roots. Most Japanese surnames, like Sakuma, were born from place names, and many families claim descent from old warrior houses or the imperial line. That is why, when you trace things back, the people you meet in this life often turn out to be as close as relatives. This is what makes Japanese surnames so interesting.

Japan is a country that treasures its history and traditions, and the most intimate piece of that tradition is your own name. Taking an interest in the name you carry leads to knowing yourself. I personally feel that this alone lifts a person's energy.

This applies to you as well. Your surname also had a first person who took it, and from that person to you, life has continued without a break. The next time you visit a family grave, try to picture both that first one and everyone who carried the line to you.