As Japanese citizens, people of the Amami Islands today have family names (surnames or last names) and given names. They are known for many unique one-character surnames that date back to the Edo period. Famous people with one-character surnames include Atari (中) Kōsuke, Hajime (元) Chitose and Nobori (昇) Shomu.

Although the Amami Islands are today part of Kagoshima Prefecture in the Kyūshū region, the inhabitants share much cultural heritage with Okinawans to the south. Politically, however, they were controlled by different polities for a long time. The Amami Islands were relatively late in being conquered by the Ryūkyū Kingdom of the Okinawa Island, and Ryūkyū's direct control did not last long. In 1609 the Satsuma Domain of southern Kyūshū conquered the Ryūkyū Kingdom. Satsuma put Amami under direct rule to increase tax revenue. By contrast Satsuma kept the Ryūkyū Kingdom to exploit its authorized trade with China. Thereafter Amami and Okinawan naming systems separately underwent great changes and they became distinct from each other.

The Amami Islands (奄美群島, Amami guntō^?) are a group of islands that is part of the Satsunan Islands, a group of islands in the Ryukyu Archipelago. They are part of Kagoshima Prefecture, in the Kyūshū region of Japan. They consist of:

The name of Amami is probably cognate with Amamikiyo (アマミキヨ^?) or Amamiko (アマミコ^?), a goddess often featured in Okinawan legends.

The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan and the Japan Coast Guard agreed on February 15, 2010, to use the name of Amami-guntō (奄美群島^?) for the Amami Islands. Prior to that, Amami-shotō (奄美諸島^?) was also used.

Islanders started to produce earthenware from 6000 years ago, affected by the Jōmon culture in Kyūshū. Initially, the styles were similar to those of the main islands of Japan, but later, a style original to Amami, known as Usuki Lower Style, was developed.

Among Japanese literature, the islands first appeared in the 7th century. The Nihon Shoki mentions Amami-shima (海見嶋^?, "Amami Island") in 657, and Amami-bito (阿麻弥人^?, "Amami people") in 682. The Shoku Nihongi refers to Amami (菴美^?) in 699 and Amami (奄美^?) in 714. All of these are believed to be identical to the current Amami. The tenth kentō-shi mission (Japanese Imperial embassies to China) traveled to Tang Dynasty China via Amami Ōshima.

A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning also) and is a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes, more loosely, called names; an older term for them, now obsolete, is "general names".

The use of personal names is not unique to humans. Dolphins also use symbolic names, as has been shown by recent research. Individual dolphins have distinctive whistles, to which they will respond even when there is no other information to clarify which dolphin is being referred to.

Caution must be exercised when translating, for there are ways that one language may prefer one type of name over another. A feudal naming habit is used sometimes in other languages: the French sometimes refer to Aristotle as "le Stagirite" from one spelling of his place of birth, and English speakers often refer to Shakespeare as "The Bard", recognizing him as a paragon writer of the language. Finally, claims to preference or authority can be refuted: the British did not refer to Louis-Napoleon as Napoleon III during his rule.