What is "Yago"?

Although the use of "yago" is not unique in Okinawa, here in Hawai'i, Oroku Azajn Club is one of the few clubs that still keeps track and utilizes the "yago" for identification purposes. This is a helpful tool because the membership consists of numerous common surnames such as Uehara and Uyehara, Teruya, Takara, Kaneshiro, Kakazu, etc. Add to this the common first name of Kame, Toku, Masa, Yuki, Ushi, etc. and you would have a major problem in identifying particular persons in Hawai'i, Okinawa and even in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

There are approximately 50-60 munchu or clans in Aza Oroku. Your yago establishes your connection to your family unit 

A survey of the number of different yago included in the club's directory yields over 100 different yago. This number is slightly inflated due to the difference in spelling. (Note: We're trying to correct the spelling for consistency.) 

From what I have learned about the yago, it appears that there may be three parts to a yago. The first part is what I call the "root name" which is one of the 50-60 family haka in Aza Oroku. The second part is the "prefix". As the families grew and separated, the prefix was attached to the root name to describe in some fashion, generally by direction, the relationship of the new house in relationship to the original or "main" house. The third part is the "suffix". The suffix was also used in a similar fashion to the prefix. 

Please note that we will continue to research this atter and provide better information to the membership in the future. Mahalo for your understanding of our initial effort.