is a

Japanese surname Officially, among Japanese names there are 291,129 different Japanese surnames, as determined by their kanji, although many of these are pronounced and romanized similarly. Conversely, some surnames written the same in kanji may also be pronounced ...

meaning "golden castle". The

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

used to write this surname may also be read Kinjō in ''

on'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

'' or Kanagusuku in the

Okinawan language The Okinawan language (, , , ) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of sm ...

pronunciation. The former reading often indicates Okinawan origin, and the latter reading always does. Okinawans in

mainland Japan is a term to distinguish the area of Japan from its outlying territories. It was an official term in the pre-war period, distinguishing Japan and its colonies in the Far East. After the end of World War II, the term became uncommon, but stil ...

with those two surnames sometimes change its reading to Kaneshiro without changing the characters. The surnames Kaneshiro and Kinjo are also found in the pass names of Koreans in Japan, formed by adding a second character to the common Korean surname

Kim Kim or KIM may refer to: Names * Kim (given name) * Kim (surname) ** Kim (Korean surname) *** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties **** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948 ** Kim, Vietnamese f ...

and then pronouncing the new name using Japanese rather than Korean reading. People with the surname Kaneshiro include: *, Japanese rugby union player *, Japanese sumo wrestler of Korean descent *, Japanese author of Korean descent *, Japanese manga artist *, Japanese-Taiwanese actor and singer of Okinawan and Taiwanese descent People with the surname Kinjō include: *, Japanese ten-pin bowler from Okinawa *, Japanese baseball player of Korean descent *, Japanese theatre actor from Okinawa *, Japanese football midfielder (J2 League) from Okinawa *, Japanese football midfielder (2. Bundesliga) from Okinawa

References

{{Surname Japanese-language surnames Okinawan surnames