Kawai Family History

Japanese: variously written, the original meaning is ‘meeting of (two) rivers’. An ancient family by this name is listed in the Shinsen shojiroku. The most usual renderings are found mostly in eastern Japan; families in different localities seem to have their own different ways of writing the name. In Okinawa Island, it is written with characters meaning ‘river well’.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press