Family name origins & meanings
- Japanese : ‘sedge plain’, found mostly in northeastern Japan; listed in the Shinsen shōjiroku as Sugahara. The family was prominent at court throughout the ninth century. Their most noted son, Sugawara no Michizane (845–903), was a famous scholar and poet who is now revered as the patron saint of scholarship. Some bearers of the name pronounce it Kanbara.