襲名 - Successing to your own name?


Sorry if I'm asking too many questions here (I do wonder, is there a place
where one could ask simple questions like these without having to open a new
thread everytime? - I feel kinda stupid ;)

To give a little background: This sentence comes from the videogame 龍が如く. The
game involves several clans, though important here are, in order of importance
and hierarchy:

> 東城会、東城会直系堂島組、東城会直系堂島組内風間組

As you can see, Tojokai is at the very top, Dojimagumi a direct affiliate and
Kazamagumi (headed by 風間新太郎) answers directly to the Dojimagumi. Now in the
story, the leader of the Dojimagumi (Sohei Dojima) is killed and the kumi
disbanded with the Kazamagumi absorbing all of its former members and becoming
a direct affiliate to the Tojokai instead, thus becoming 東城会直系風間組.

Now later on you stumble upon a picture of Kazama Shintaro (several important
clan/group leaders are depicted here) with the main character stating:

>
> １９９６年・直系風間組／初代・風間新太郎。親っさんか・・・１９９６年に風間組を襲名って事は、堂島組長が死んでから、直ぐって事か。俺も刑務所に入ってなかったら、風間組で生きていたって事になるな

Now to the issue at hand: From what I could gather, 襲名 means "to success to
another's professional name". What I don't understand is, in the game Kazama
doesn't change position or anything, all that happened was that his kumi got
promoted so to speak and became a direct affiliate to the Tojokai as opposed
to working for somebody else. How can you success to your own name?
Interestingly the official English translation translates this sentence as "he
became a direct patriarch after Dojima died".

So what gives?

