Japanese wife's surname after marriage

[TokyoBoglehead]

Wow that is impressive. Are you on the birth certificate?

Are you on the Koseki? How would that not be accepted as proof?

No problem at my local Yucho, or with J-Nisa through Rakuten.

(My wife also kept her surname, and my son and daughter took her last name).

Are you deep in the inaka?

[RetireJapan]

My wife has kept her Japanese name and so my Daughter has her name...

Sorry to hear, that is exactly the sort of experience that would drive me nuts.

In my experience some post office employees still think they are public servants from the Showa era, and are both wrong and stubborn about certain things.

Presumably you could get a jyuuminhyou/koseki to prove your family relationship.

My wife and(step)daughters have her name, so I took it as my official alias to make things easier with schools, hospitals, etc.. I have it in kanji on my driving license, My Number card, one bank account.

That might be an option for you too.

[concerned]

Wow that is impressive. Are you on the birth certificate?

Are you on the Koseki? How would that not be accepted as proof?

No problem at my local Yucho, or with J-Nisa through Rakuten.

(My wife also kept her surname, and my son and daughter took her last name).

Are you deep in the inaka?

Yes I am on the Koseki but did not have this with me. I am living in Yokohama
I had my wife's Hanko and hand written birth cert but this was not accepted by person at the post office...

[concerned]

My wife has kept her Japanese name and so my Daughter has her name...

Sorry to hear, that is exactly the sort of experience that would drive me nuts.

In my experience some post office employees still think they are public servants from the Showa era, and are both wrong and stubborn about certain things.

Presumably you could get a jyuuminhyou/koseki to prove your family relationship.

My wife and(step)daughters have her name, so I took it as my official alias to make things easier with schools, hospitals, etc.. I have it in kanji on my driving license, My Number card, one bank account.

That might be an option for you too.

Yep stubborn and wrong sums up the person at the post office
My wife wanted to launch a formal complaint, but I told her it was not worth the hassle.
Yes as you say jyuuminhyou/koseki to prove my family relationship would have helped for this situation, but this now has me concerned about the case if my daughter had a sudden accident and then problems with the hospital if my wife was not about.
Yep taking my wifes name would be an option, but I would be concerned with having problems in my home country then for the case of a will and such.

[RetireJapan]

Yep taking my wifes name would be an option, but I would be concerned with having problems in my home country then for the case of a will and such.

Just to be clear, I have not taken my wife's surname. My passport etc. are still in my original name. What I did was set my Japanese alias (通名) to be her surname plus a version of my given name in kanji

[TokyoBoglehead]

Wow that is impressive. Are you on the birth certificate?

Are you on the Koseki? How would that not be accepted as proof?

No problem at my local Yucho, or with J-Nisa through Rakuten.

(My wife also kept her surname, and my son and daughter took her last name).

Are you deep in the inaka?

Yes I am on the Koseki but did not have this with me. I am living in Yokohama
I had my wife's Hanko and hand written birth cert but this was not accepted by person at the post office...

I don't want to be a contrarian but I can totally see them not accepting a handwritten document.

When we registered my daughter's birth at city hall recently the very helpful employee suggested we order a few copies to facilitate those processes, include her Canadian citizenship application.

Yucho seemed to want a koseki for my son. Rakuten approved the NISA right away without one. The Canadian government want notarized, and professionally translated sets of documents.

I think a koseki is a reasonable ask considering NYC rules.

( If they rejected you with a koseki I would be very upset though).

[captainspoke]

...
When we registered my daughter's birth at city hall recently the very helpful employee suggested we order a few copies to facilitate those processes, include her Canadian citizenship application.

Yucho seemed to want a koseki for my son. Rakuten approved the NISA right away without one. The Canadian government want notarized, and professionally translated sets of documents.

I think a koseki is a reasonable ask considering KYC rules.
...

Curious--did they just have a look at it, or did they take and keep a copy ("for their records")?

[mighty58]

Interesting hearing about concerns about a lack of continuity in a professional setting for women who change their surnames... Is this limited to academia? Every company I've worked for in Japan has given women the choice on which name they want to go by post-marriage, so if they want, they can continue working under their maiden names, even if "officially" It's different. And just looking around the office anecdotally, I'd estimate that most (70%+) choose to keep working under their maiden names.

[captainspoke]

Married daughter changed her name from katakana to the kanji of her husband. Only anecdotal, but she said there were people who commented something like, "but we know you as 'katakana'". After a couple years and two year-long maternity leaves, also a switch of jobs within the company, I haven't ever heard anything like that again.

*

It was sometimes confusing where I worked--someone in the office would get married, and instead of saying X-san, I had to be careful to say/use Y-san.

[Gulliver]

Some anecdotes about my Japanese wife taking my surname:

When we first got married I was taken aback at how vehemently opposed she was to keeping her maiden name in any form. Additionally, when I suggested that our kids should have Japanese first names at least (I thought they sounded cool), she was diametrically opposed and wanted only foreign names. In trying to elicit an explanation, all I could get out of her was that it was just one of those ”Yada” things.

As far as documents and paperwork we have not had any insurmountable problems, be it in Japan or overseas. In fact, my name is uncommon and often misspelled and mispronounced in English speaking countries. In the Japanese katakana, however, the phonetics are very clear and they pronounce it nearly perfectly here. A pleasant change for me.

A foreign last name has also been beneficial to my wife in obtaining quality employment. She was able to land an above industry standard salary because of it. The president of the company said her résumé stood out among the hundreds they had received because of her name. He explained to her that the dearth of applicants with international job experience and functional business English made it very difficult for him to find suitable employees.

On the issue of making reservations: I have never made reservations with my own name for privacy reasons and I have finally convinced my wife to do the same. For some reason she felt guilty giving a fake name. In the beginning, however, there were several times when she made a reservation under our real name and no table was available. Then a Japanese friend calls with a Japanese name and voilà dinner is served. It should be noted that this situation can vary greatly depending on the venue. Some restaurants that wish to appear cosmopolitan put you right in the front window where everybody can see you, others stick you as far back near the toilet as possible unless you insist on sitting up front.

As far as children getting bullied for being different, I think that can happen in any part of the world. They can be nasty little buggers. (maybe the monoculture here provides an environment where unconscious bias thrives more readily (just a theory)). The way it’s handled should not be different, however. If someone were to do this to my child you can be sure the parents and the school will have wished they had prevented it.