Tokyo CNN —Everyone in Japan could one day have the same surname unless its restrictive marriage laws change, according to a new study. But the country’s dwindling marriage rate could buck that trend and a rapidly declining population might render it moot entirely. If the rules carry on, all Japanese people could have the surname Sato by 2531, according to Hiroshi Yoshida, an economist from Tohoku University in Sendai, who led the study. According to Myoji Yurai, a company that tracks Japan’s more than 300,000 surnames, Sato is currently the most common, followed by Suzuki. About 1.8 million people out of Japan’s 125 million population have the surname Sato, Myoji Yurai says on its website.

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Persons: Sato, Hiroshi Yoshida, Myoji, Suzuki, Takahashi, Myoji Yurai, Yoshida –, Yoshida, ” Yoshida, ”, Fumio Kishida, Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Galton, Watson Organizations: Tokyo CNN, Tohoku University, CNN Locations: Japan, Sendai, East Asia, China