Tokugawa (surname)

Tokugawa (Shinjitai (modern Japanese) spelling: 徳川; Kyūjitai (historical Japanese) spelling: 德川) is a surname in Japan.

It originated with Tokugawa Ieyasu, who took the surname in 1567, reviving an ancestral placename. He and his fourteen successors were shoguns during the Edo period of Japanese history. Some of his sons also bore the Tokugawa surname, and three cadet branches of his line, the Owari, Kii, and Mito Tokugawa, continued as daimyo through the Edo period. Descendants of Ieyasu who were not permitted to take the Tokugawa name normally bore the Matsudaira surname.