祭神は菅原道真（すがわらのみちざね）。大宰府に左遷された菅原道真が、憔悴した自分の姿を川面に映したことからこの名がついたと言われています。当初は今泉（いまいずみ）にあったものを、江戸時代初期に初代福岡藩主･黒田長政（くろだながまさ）が福岡城の鬼門にあたる現在地に東の鎮守として移設しました。天神の地名は、この神社に由来しています。

Suikyo Tenmangu, which enshrines the deity Sugawara no Michizane (a scholar, poet, and politician in the Heian period), is said to be named from a time in which Michizane, demoted and sent to Dazaifu, saw his emaciated reflection on the surface of the river—hence "suikyo" (mirror of water). The shrine was originally located in Imaizumi, but in the early Edo period Kuroda Nagamasa, the first lord of the Fukuoka Domain, relocated it to its present site as the eastern tutelary shrine at the kimon (“demon gate”) of Fukuoka Castle. The district name “Tenjin” derives from this shrine.