"Dream, Dream, Dream! Conduct these dreams into thoughts, and then transform them into action."
- Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
"Dream, Dream, Dream! Conduct these dreams into thoughts, and then transform them into action."
- Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
11 Nov 2022
How would it feel to meet a sea of people with your name? Last month, around 178 people with the name Hirokazu Tanaka rejoiced when they set a world record for "the largest gathering of persons with the same name". The congregation happened in an auditorium in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.
This was the Hirokazu Tanakas' third effort to successfully establish a record in their name. The gathering's youngest Hirokazu Tanaka was three years old, while the oldest attendee was eighty. One person made a long journey from Hanoi to Vietnam to attend the event.
Hirokazu Tanaka, a Tokyo-based employee of a corporation, organized the event. According to a Japanese publication, The Mainichi Shimbun, Tanaka, 53, first developed an interest in people with the same name as him in 1994 after witnessing baseball player Hirokazu Tanaka join the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, a professional baseball team in Japan. Interestingly, the baseball player attended the historic event as well.
A video of the record-breaking moment, in which the crowd burst into cheers as soon as the Guinness World Records adjudicator declared that they had set a new record, went viral.
This group surpassed the previous record, which was held by 164 Martha Stewarts who gathered in the US in 2005.
