The name means the sixth month, June in the old calendar. Minazuki was a Mutsuki-class destroyer. Uraga Dock Company laid her down on 24 March 1924, launched her on 25 May 1926 and completed her on 22 March 1927 as Destroyer No. 28. She received her name on 1 August 1928.
At Pearl Harbor she was in Destroyer Division 22, Destroyer Squadron 5, and sailed from Mako in the Pescadores for the Philippines, screening the Lingayen and Aparri landings. In early 1942 she escorted troop convoys for the Malaya and Java invasions and then served with the Southwest Area Fleet out of Singapore. She was at Sasebo for repairs from August to October 1942.
From February 1943 she was with the Eighth Fleet at Rabaul on Tokyo Express runs. She landed troops at Kolombangara on 12 July 1943 without combat. On 2 October 1943, during a Kolombangara evacuation run, she engaged three American destroyers and was hit by three shells, all duds. On 4 November she rescued 267 survivors of the damaged transport Kiyozumi Maru.
She patrolled out of Palau in March and April 1944 and escorted troop convoys to Saipan in May. On 6 June 1944, after leaving Tawitawi with a tanker convoy for Balikpapan, USS Harder torpedoed and sank her. Wakatsuki took off 45 survivors. Her captain, Lieutenant Kieji Isobe, was lost. She was struck from the Navy List on 10 August 1944.
Sources: Allyn Nevitt's combinedfleet.com Tabular Record of Movement for IJN Minazuki; Wikipedia, Japanese destroyer Minazuki, rewritten here.