Within the broad family of work, the reserve the name "Yamato " for a specific subset. In the original sense, the term denotes the blades Saburō Kaneuji (兼氏 / 包氏) made while still resident in Yamato Province, before he settled at in Tagi District of , during the years he signed with the characters read Kanetsugu (包氏). Kaneuji had trained first in the Yamato tradition of the line before entering the workshop of Masamune, becoming counted among the Masamune Juttetsu, and his Yamato roots persisted in the work he produced prior to the removal. The extend the name further: even after Kaneuji relocated to , smiths who remained in Yamato succeeded to the Kanetsugu name-line (名跡), and in the broader usage their blades are likewise gathered under "Yamato ." The corpus accordingly spans the late through the period, and most surviving examples are , whose attribution rests on workmanship rather than signature.
The shared vocabulary across these blades is consistent. The is that flows and inclines toward , the grain often standing (), with and mixed in; near the edge the grows conspicuous. Thick adheres, enter frequently, the steel is sometimes slightly blackish, and a faint or -like texture may appear. The rests on a or base into which , , and a pointed edge (, ) are mixed, with and entering well. adheres thickly, the is bright, and along the the repeatedly note , , , uchi-noke, and , with in places. and run conspicuously, and the tends to , often turning toward or a flame-like (kaen-fū) form, sometimes finishing . The judges describe this as a temperament intermingled with - and character. Recognition turns on that balance: against proper, the Yamato coloration shows in the high , the -laden flowing grain, the and along the edge, and the swept, flame-like ; against Naoe , the work reads earlier and more -laden, closer to Kaneuji's own hand than to the later, calmer continuation.
In the diagnostic weight falls on the -inclined standing grain, the -to- edge carrying and , and the dense Yamato-type activity (, , uchi-noke, ) coupled with bright and frequent and ; the or -style confirms the reading, and one judge likened a particularly fine ground to Hōenaga (包永) of the Yamato homeland. The signed bear out the lineage: the Kanetsugu with the gō "Sansui", and another signed piece bestowed by the shogunal house upon the Makino family, both anchor the group to a documented name-line, while certain passages were judged to recall the Bunbe . Provenance recorded in the reaches into prominent houses: a transmitted in the Chōfu Mōri family of Nagato, and a blade held as the personal sword of Ōmura Masujirō. Taken together, the Yamato blades occupy a distinct position between the Yamato schools that formed Kaneuji and the manner he carried into , a grouping the treats as readily affirmable on the strength of its grain and its activity.