'Great names'. The territorial lords of feudal Japan. Under the hoken system of the Tokugawa period they were responsible to the shogun for ruling their own feudal domains up to the Meiji restoration in 1868. Though historically the wealthiest and most powerful rulers in Japan, they were technically lower in social status than the kuge, the ancient aristocracy surrounding the imperial family who for centuries lived in reduced circumstances in Kyoto and who re-emerged with 19th-century titles of count, baron etc. when the daimyo fell from grace and from power in the Meiji restoration A Popular Dictionary of Shinto (Brian Bocking)
