Japanese surnames
I am looking for information on the Japanese surnames Oomiya and Ootsuka. They seem to be quite rare and finding information on them has proved to be difficult so far.
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The Oo Means big. The double-O is to indicate that the vowel is long. Sometimes a single O is used to express this sound, sometimes an O with a line over it, sometimes OU. So looking for information on these two surnames could involve trying several variations in spelling.
Oomiya means "big or great (Shinto) shrine", presumably a place name.
This Wikipedia page gives the meaning of Ootsuka as "large mound" -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctsuka#Placename
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