This long-tongued creature, whose name means "filth licker", appeared in the first volume of Toriyama Sekien's famous Gazu Hyakki Yakō.¹ While Sekien left no explanation, it is likely he based his creation on the aka-neburi (垢ねぶり) (also meaning "filth-licker"), a creature from the Edo Period story collection called Kokon Hyaku Monogatari Hyō‎ban (古今百物語評判), which lives in public baths and dilapidated houses.²

Today the akaname is often explained as a creature which appears in bathrooms where cleaning has been neglected and filth has accumulated for it to lick, but this explanation seems to have originated in the Yōkai Gadan Zenshū, a monster anthology published in the 1920's by Fujisawa Morihiko.

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1. Toriyama, p. 20

2. Fujisawa Morihiko to Toriyama Sekien - Akaname