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A group of 178 men all sharing the name Tanaka Hirokazu in Tokyo on Saturday to the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people with the same first and last name. The successful record attempt was by the Tanaka Hirokazu association. This group was by a guy Tanaka Hirokazu (surprise, surprise) in 1994. Mr Tanaka's inspiration from a namesake of his into a professional Japanese baseball team. Ex-baseball player Tanaka Hirokazu was also part of Saturday's record meeting. The 178 new record holders the generations, with the youngest three years old, and the eldest being an octogenarian.

Association leader Tanaka Hirokazu, 53, was at breaking the world record. His association had twice before, in 2011 and 2017, to the record. These attempts were largely because of the association's insistence on all participants to have the same Chinese characters (kanji) in their name. Saturday's meeting had a more lenient criterion. The association that anyone with the name Hirokazu Tanaka was eligible, regardless of the kanji to spell their name. Mr Tanaka on his world-beating achievement. He told reporters: "I never expected we would such a ridiculous record." He added that the 178 Tanakas had " an example of silliness".