A Japanese professor is sounding the alarm over a strange problem the country could be facing in the distant future wherein, due to a law requiring (marry) couples to use a single surname, everyone will eventually wind up with the last name Sato. The odd demographic (人口统计的) issue (uncover) reportedly by Tohoku University's Hiroshi Yoshida, who was enlisted by a group (look) to change the regulation on surnames. Studying at current statistics, the professor found that there was a 1.0083% increase Satos from 2022 to 2023. Extrapolating (推断) forward using that rate assuming that the law does not change, Yoshida indicated that half the Japanese population will have the surname by 2446 and the entire country will (name) Sato just 85 years later.
"If everyone becomes Sato, we may have to be addressed by our first names or by numbers," the professor said to a Japanese media outlet, "I don't think that would be good world to live in." Conversely, the professor, basing his findings on the results of a poll showing strong support for changing the surname law, concluded that ending the regulation would prevent the proverbial Sato singularity in 2531 as only around eight percent of the population would have the last name by then. It remains to be seen whether Yoshida's research will be cause for (act) among Japanese officials, especially since the issue will take (century) to come to fruition.
