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A group of 178 men called Tanaka Hirokazu met in Tokyo on Saturday to break the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people with the same name. The successful attempt was organized by the Tanaka Hirokazu association. This group was started by Tanaka Hirokazu (surprise, surprise) in 1994. He was inspired by seeing his namesake drafted into a Japanese baseball team. Ex-baseball player Tanaka Hirokazu was also part of Saturday's record. The 178 new record holders span the generations. The youngest is three, the eldest is 80.
Tanaka Hirokazu, 53, was very happy with breaking the world record. His two previous attempts (in 2011 and 2017) failed because the association wanted participants to have the same Chinese characters in their name. Saturday's meeting had a more relaxed rule. Anyone with the name Hirokazu Tanaka was eligible, regardless of the Chinese characters used to spell the name. Mr Tanaka told reporters: "I never expected we would achieve such a ridiculous record." He added that the 178 Tanakas had "set an example of silliness".
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