A little preface
In response to the recent news that LDP lawmakers are pushing to reject a policy change that would allow married Japanese couples to have different surnames (god forbid the whole change should result in the collapse of the social system), here is my experience of the opposite: trying - and failing - to take my Japanese husband’s surname.
This is not an open discussion as to why one should or shouldn’t take their partner’s name, nor is it about submitting to or overthrowing the patriarchy, it is just my account and insight into why it is near impossible for foreigners to have a Japanese (read: kanji) name and yet the world keeps on spinning. Sorry in advance for crushing your dreams of sharing your waifu’s name.
But.. why should I be bothered?
If you’ve stumbled across this and are reading out of curiosity and without the intention of changing your name in Japan, you might wonder why this means much to anyone in the first place.
For some, it may just be as simple as wanting to honour the sanctity of marriage in the archaic sense as one might in their home country, or to feel as though you are more of a whole family unit. For others, more practical motives may be involved.
For starters, simply being recognised as a married couple can be difficult in Japan if you don’t share the same surname. After all, with only around 3.5% of marriages per year being international marriages between a foreigner and Japanese national, you could easily be mistaken as friends, language partners, or even strangers (true story).
I should mention at this point that having the romanised (English) version of the Japanese name does not count as having the same surname, and it can confuse matters greatly. When it comes to filling out forms, there is space for your kanji name and sometimes not for the other Japanese alphabets. When it comes to raising children, putting them through school, attending parent-teacher meetings and doctors appointments or travelling with them, without having the same surname, you basically run the risk of looking like a kidnapper. Especially if you are notably “foreign-looking”. In the event of divorce, you will also stand next to no chance of winning custody of said children because of the way the system works. Even practical everyday things like getting a credit card or loan become increasingly difficult without a Japanese name because, unfortunately, name discrimination (and fear) exists here.
And that’s just scratching the surface of it all.
In many cases, to fully function as a married unit - heck, even as an equal individual - as one might in one’s home country, a Japanese surname is vital (if not, at least desirable).
Alas, if only it were as easy as us all sticking our names into a Japanese name generator, signing some papers and becoming the kanji equivalent of “Rice Field Blessed Child” (that’s not how the names work btw). So why is there such a big issue surrounding getting the Japanese name in the first place?
A little paper with a lot of power
To understand a little more about how the marriage system works, you first need to understand the existence of a little thing called the “koseki-tohon, 戸籍謄本” (family register).
Each family has their own register to record things like births, deaths, marriages, and “honseki, 本籍” (“registered domicile” – this is another fun thing that causes a lot of unnecessary faff for getting official documents, but that’s a story for another day).
When a couple gets married, a new family register is created under the name of the head of the household. The head of the household is typically the husband, but in the case of international marriages it will be whoever the Japanese partner is.
This little record is the reason why Japanese married couples must have the same surname (because everyone on the family register *must* have the same surname). As a little aside, the koseki-tohon has been a hot topic for discussion not just because of this, but because as much as it’s great for finding out your family history and keeping things organised, it is also a very private thing that contains sensitive information which can be used to discriminate against illegitimate children, divorcees, and unwed women (shock horror!) and opens up a world of class discrimination against groups such as the Burakumin (get to Googling!).
Up until fairly recently, these things were written in pencil and foreign spouses were sometimes not even included or if they were, it was not as a married partner as would be the case with Japanese couples, but as a footnote (“bikou”, 備考). Luckily, these days things are digital and my name is on our register under “wife” and I can’t simply be erased!! But the point is, there is not the same weight in terms of need for foreigners to change their surname as there is with Japanese couples because we, as non-citizens of Japan, can’t have our own koseki-tohon and are technically governed by different rules (unless you want to try breaking Japanese law and see how long that holds true).
As far as name changes go, the issue is settled under the laws of one’s own country, not by that of the country of residence. In fact, in the case of international marriages in Japan, both the foreign and Japanese spouse can change their last name to that of the other..in theory.
So here’s where it gets tricky.
My surname is written on our family register as my maiden name since that’s what it was when we got married (duh). But how do you go from having your maiden name written in English on a Japanese family register to taking your spouse’s surname in kanji? The short answer is, you either get citizenship or you basically don’t. You can, however, create an alias for yourself and write the romanised version on your ID.
Now that I’ve rambled on about how the register works, below is a little step-by-step rundown of my experience doing just that as a British citizen married to a Japanese national:
- Got married (obvs)
At this point our new family register was created with my name added to indicate that we got married. This step has some long pre-requisites that require you to visit your country’s embassy to get an affidavit and so on, but that’s another story for another day..
2. Applied for a “tsuushoumei, 通称名” (legal alias)
Having a legal alias allows foreigners to use their family’s kanji name in a lot of everyday scenarios, such as opening accounts. This step was important for me to use our Japanese family name in kanji on things like bank cards. In my experience, this was done relatively easily by filling out a form at the city hall after marriage, but in some cases you may need proof that you have been using the name previously for the application to be accepted.
A legal alias is put on both the family register and “juminhyo, 住民票” (certificate of residence) as a little footnote. It does not magically change your “real” name on either document. The certificate of residence is not the same as a “zairyu card, 在留カード” (residence card) which is essentially your visa and ID, and while you can use the alias for everyday situations, it can’t be used for official ID like your residence card and passport. So the next stage was to legally change my name in my passport..
3. Got the family register officially translated
In order to change my name on both my passport and residence card, I needed a translation of the family register as proof that we were married. We paid for an official translation as the British government doesn’t accept translations without proof of certification.
4. Applied for a new passport
This step was fairly routine, and I applied for the passport online. The only difference to applying for a new passport as normal was that I needed to select the option to state that my name had changed due to marriage and also needed to send the translated family register.
HOWEVER, I do have a little word of warning about this step: I initially sent off a translation of our “kon-in todoke 婚姻届書” (certificate of marriage notification) with my application thinking that this would be sufficient proof of our marriage. It was not. Do not send one of these. Only the koseki-tohon (family register). Don’t waste your time pls. To be quite honest, aside from being necessary to be put on the family register, I’m not even sure when the certificate of marriage notification is even useful since all it shows is your intention to marry and that you handed in all the documents needed to get married to the city hall.. it’s basically not valid proof of marriage for anything official that you might need a document for, but I digress..on to step 5.
5. Waited a while while panicking about my imminently expiring visa
Between finding out I sent the wrong documents, sending the correct one, and then waiting for my new passport with my new Japanese surname (written in English), a lot of time passed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and now I can recommend you not try to change your surname around the same time as your visa. According to the British government, the passport renewal/ name change takes 4 weeks. With my balls-up, the ordeal from translation to eventually receiving my new passport lasted just shy of 6 weeks, which was just in time for step 6..
6. Applied for a new residence card (visa)
Now that I had our family name in English on my passport, I could update it on my other form of ID: my residence card. This can (and should) be done at any point at which your circumstances change, and you don’t need to wait for your old residence card to expire. Initially I thought I could extend my visa and change my name simultaneously, but these are two different steps. This was, however, the final step in officially changing my name.
I completed a “Notification of a change in an item on the residence card” form using my new surname and received an updated residence card with my new surname. Success! Kind of.
The thing to note here is, unless your home country recognises Chinese characters and they can be written on your passport, there is no way to obtain your ID with kanji via this particular process. So, as a British citizen, this is where the trail ends in terms of changing my name.
Even though I have an alias with kanji that can be used for *almost* everything, my official forms of ID need to be written as they are in my passport (i.e. a Japanese surname written using the English alphabet).
When a person becomes a Japanese citizen, they can choose to take a kanji name because Japan does recognise Chinese characters (honestly how this even works confuses the hell out of me because passports are still written using the English alphabet everywhere and so even my husband’s passport is essentially “in English” AKA Romaji).
I have heard that there are ways in which you can get permission to use the kanji pre-naturalising with permission from your spouse and going through the family court, but there is (un?)surprisingly little information readily available on this topic in English and I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of reaching surname enlightenment this way.
And so the standard response seems to be just as I have written above; that you have a name that sounds the same as your spouse’s when spoken - and for all intents and purposes would be the same in your home country - but only your alias can include the kanji, and unfortunately for the 3.something % of us in international marriages here, there doesn’t seem to be any change to this weird surname loophole in sight for the foreseeable future. Unless of course it’s deemed that there’s enough rogue foreigners with different surnames to their partners bringing about the “collapse of the social system”..
