From the Kamakura period onwards, when there was no heir to carry on a family's name, sometimes an unrelated person, who sympathized with the family's situation (discontinuation), assumed (`adopted`) the name, and moreover, there were cases where victors who destroyed a family in battle appropriated the vanquished family's name as a trophy.
鎌倉時代以降、家名が絶えた場合にその断絶を惜しみ、肉親以外のものが称す場合があり、さらには戦勝の記念として滅ぼした敵の家名を名乗るという事例もあるという。