KOHJI KAMIYA

Japanese: ‘divine valley’; also pronounced Kamitani, Kamegai, and Kabeya. A habitational name; one family, descendants of the Iwaki branch of the Taira clan, took the name from Kamiyamura in Iwaki (now part of Fukushima prefecture). Other families descend from the northern Fujiwara through the Utsunomiya family, and through Fujiwara no Hidesato (10th century) by his descendant Iga and Satake families. The pronunciation Kamiya is mostly found in eastern Japan and the Ryūkyū Islands; the pronunciation Kamitani in western Japan.