The picture above is a parade of the Top Ten among Japanese family crests, i.e. their basic designs have been most often used in cranking up other family crests since before the first thousand years. Besides the 18-petalled golden chrysanthemum, which is the Imperial Family's crest, the most widespread crest designs consist of the following (the clans that are mentioned first are those whose crests are shown as examples of each category in the main picture above):

Some used dots to form flowers and such -- like the famous clans under Oda Nobunaga's overlordship: Maeda, Kuki, Tsutsui, Hosokawa. The Chiba clan also used dots as flower petals.

The Rusu, Nasu, and Kusunoki clans incorporated a chrysanthemum in their crests, signifying the imperial DNA in their ancestors' veins.

A few unimaginatively used kanji, such as the mighty Mori, the blunderer Ishida, and a number of well-known warrior clans like Honda, Ukita, Hara, Inoue, and Murakami.

A warlord's clan preceded the Meiji to World War II flag: the Ryuzoji's crest has already been featuring sunrays since 14th century.

Crests were thought up based on a good many considerations, and a great chunk of those couldn't survive being rationally vivisected. Handles, for example, which surround the Akagawa crest, meant good luck being pulled into the person fluttering the crest. In this case Oda's crest had its flower petals to resemble handles a bit, too.

Japan has, until today, a 'flower language' of its own. Since flowers make a lot of family crests, maybe you'd better check out what every flower means to the Japanese (click here).

There are beautiful samurai crests such as Akagawa's, Taira's, Nagano's and Yagyu's:

And there are hard-to-fathom crests like the ones belonging to the clans of Araki, Hineno, Mogami, and Soma:

There were complicated and hard-to-emulate crests like the ones upheld by the Akita, Date, Muneshige, and Tada clans:

And there were those very famous clans whose crests were much too simple to forget (and too hard to be seen as crests when stencilled on daily stuff), such as Kuroda's, Kato's, Niwa's and Takemata's coats of arms:

While a few warlords of 16th century already fluttered 'modern' and 'postmodern' or 'contemporary' or (in their times) 'futuristic' designs over their luggage, like the crests of the families of Suganuma, Hatakeyama, Hojo, Horio, and Ujiie:

The use of family crests in Japan is usually said to have started in Heian era (around the year 750), but in real life even when the capital city of the country was still in Nara (around 600) some people already put on some crests on their belongings. Even when Nara didn't exist yet -- the capital was in Asuka, in 500's -- Empress Suiko has put some symbols on her banners, for a very practical reason: she went to war a lot, and it was hard for her men to see where she was any given time in battlefields. She ordered her Generals to do the same because otherwise she couldn't scold the underachievers in the aftermath of such battles.

Samurai family crests used to be emblazoned all over the Heian carts.	Minamoto versus Taira clan's final battle in 1185 started the boom of samurai crests.	The Imperial crest is put on top of the gate of Meiji shrine in Kyoto.

Why did the Japanese bother to find family crests? Because since the year 500 there were too many noblehouses already, especially those whose daily biz was loitering around the Imperial Palace but nowhere around the Imperial succession line.

Taira Sadamori in 1185	And his enemy, Minamoto Yoritomo

Princes #7 and subsequent siblings had to move out of the Imperial House and made their own families, which in time evolved into clans. Asuka in late 500's was reportedly already crowded with such noblepersons.

They all might have had some home addresses far away inland, but they kept mansions in the capital city, and those mansions were full of retainers, servants, errand-boys, cooks, dealers, and so forth. Those people might carry their bosses' (i.e. their lords') stuff -- carriages, litters or sedan-chairs, oxen, horses, food trays, vegetable baskets, etcetera in public places and public events; so the stuff simply must be marked by something as somebody's property or else -- whatever might happen.

So that's why in 700's people put family crests virtually everywhere, from carts to arrows to tiny weeny tea cups.

Oda's saddle	Emperor's basket	Fujiwara's mirror	Matsunaga's plate

Click on to the next page for more samurai family crests, battle-banners, battle-standards, and all the clutter around warlords in battlefields every time around because of this thing named 'mon'.

• History of Japan
• Family Crests of Samurai Clans
• Samurai is identical with swords, right? WRONG.
• Japanese Swords, Swordsmaking & Swordsplay
• Historically-Correct Samurai Armors
• Authentic Swords of Japanese Warlords
• Samurai Weapons
• Historically-Correct Samurai Armors
• History & Pictures of Japanese Christian Samurai & Warlords
• How a Japanese Warlord Got His Army
• Spaces, Interior Design & Architecture
• Japanese Warlords' Money
• Japanese 16th century Warlords
• Management of a Warlord's Household
• Japanese Samurai Wars
• Origins of Samurai Habits
• Bushido
• Yamabushi, the Japanese Demon-Slayers (For Real)
• History of Japanese Portrait Paintings
• Maps of All Japanese Provinces, Warlords & Battles
• Premodern Japan: Real-Life in Emperor Meiji's World
• Japanese Warrior Codes & Samurai Beliefs
• Real Samurai Legends
• Origins of Japanese Music, Songs, Dramas & Dance
• Many traditions that we assume to be Japanese are actually imported from China: kanji, Buddhism, ikebana, bonsai, tea ceremony, and so on -- even sushi and Shinto. No kidding.
• Things that are 100% Japanese
• Incidents of Real Samurai Lives
• Yakuza & the Underground Samuraihood
• Kamikaze, the Flying Samurai
• Ainu, the Forgotten Natives of Japan
• The Shield Society
• The Japanese Self-Defense Forces
• Ukiyo: the Fleeting World, the Floating World, the Samurai's view of Life (Death)
• Meanings of the Japanese Flowers & the Samurai Flowers
• Incidents of Real Samurai Lives
• Shinto, the Essence of Japan
• Yakuza & the Underground Samuraihood
• Kamikaze, the Flying Samurai
• Zen, Samurai's Buddhism
• Meanings of Japanese Names, Nicknames & Titles
• How the Japanese Name Themselves
• History of Japanese Clothes
• Kimono Culture
• Samurai LEGENDS: since 660 BCE until 1868
• History of Japanese Dolls & Origami
• Structure of Japanese Feudal Society
• Rulers of Japan since 660 B.C. until today
• Shoguns for Dummies
• The Japanese Greatest Warrior Clans
• Cities of Japanese Warlords
• Weird snapshots, strange truths, odd realities & wacky info about Japan
• Samurai ANIME: Watsuki Nobuhiro's

Sources tapped for this page: Nihon Shakai no Kazoku teki Kosei (Tokyo: 1948); Kono Shozo, Kokumin Dotoku Yoron (Tokyo: 1935); Anesaki Masaharu, Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1916); Robert Cornell Armstrong, Light from the East, Studies of Japanese Confucianism (University of Toronto, Canada, 1914); Sasama Yoshihiko, Nihon kassen zuten (Yuzankaku, 1997); William Aston, Shinto: The Way of the Gods (London: Longmans, Green, 1905); Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946); Charles Eliot, Japanese Buddhism (London, 1935); Futaki Kenichi, Chuusei buke no saho (Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1999); Kiyooka Eichii, The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi (Tokyo, Hokuseido Press, 1934); Konno Nobuo, Kamakura bushi monogatari (Kawade shobo shinsha, 1997); Nukariya Kaiten, The Religion of the Samurai (London: Luzac, 1913); A.L. Sadler, The Beginner's Book of Bushido by Daidoji Yuzan (Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1941); A.L. Sadler, The Makers of Modern Japan (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1978); Satomi Kishio, Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles (NY: Dutton, 1924); Suzuki D.T., Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture (Kyoto: The Eastern Buddhist Society, 1938); Henri Van Straelen, Yoshida Shoin (Leiden: Brill, 1952); Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion; Sato Hiroaki, Legends of the Samurai (Overlook Press, 1995); Masaaki Takahashi, Bushi no seiritsu: Bushizo no soshutsu (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku, 1999); Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Warlords (London: Blandford Publishing, 1992); Paul Akamatsu, Meiji 1868, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Allen & Unwin, 1972); Nitobe Inazo, Bushido, The Soul of Japan (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1970); Paul Varley and Ivan Morris, The Samurai (Weidenfeld, 1970); Inoguchi and Nakajima, The Divine Wind: Japanese Kamikaze Force in World War II (Hutchinson, 1959), Seki Yukihiko, Bushi no tanjo (Tokyo: NHK, 2000); Amino Yoshihiko, ed. Edojidai no mikataga kawaruho (Tokyo: Yosensha, 1998).