Japanese Wife name change (Kanji or Katakana)

Hi all,

I recently got married to a Japanese woman here in the United States. However, she had to go back to Japan and we are going to do the spouse visa. However, we need to change her name and although we would like for her last name to be in kanji, we were thinking katakana may be better and the safer route. My dad is from Japan and I still have dual citizenship and a koseki tohon and koseki shohon. So, I am half japanese, but looking for the best way to solve this issue.

Also how would this process affect how we do the spouse visa? Has anyone done something similar to us? I was thinking I could go there with the necessary papers, go with her to the city hall and present our koseki's and she can be registered under my koseki and then I can get a passport in japan and then enter the u.s with my us passport? What do you gusy recommend or think?

Thank you in advance.

So you retained your Japanese citizenship? In that case you don't need to apply for a spouse visa, but you will need to obtain your Japanese Passport if you haven't already.

Also, I think you'll have to report your marriage just like any other Japanese couple getting married overseas. I'm not sure how her being back in Japan changes that process however. AK can probably give you better info regarding the registration process.

This all sounds very complicated. As you probably know, you're not allowed to have dual citizenship if you are over 20 and for legal dual citizen you have to enter and leave Japan on your Japanese passport. That said, plenty of people illegally retain their Japanese citizenship and don't have any problems, including those that enter on their foreign passport/with visa if that benefits their situation. If you're careful, you shouldn't have any problems doing this.

As to the marriage - if you register your wife on your koseki (i.e if you marry as a Japanese to Japanese), then yourseki. As for every normal Japanese marriage, there is no way to avoid this.
If you marry as a non-Japanese to a Japanese then you can be registered as a note on her koseki. She can keep her name, or have your foreign passport name in romanji added in brackets after her name, or change her name to a katakanaised version of your foreign passport name. Any other sort of name change would require a court order. If your surname has a kanji root, then it used to be possible for you to use that as an alias, probably your wife too if a katakana version has to be employed on her koseki.

If you enter on your Japanese passport, no visa is required, no matter which way you choose to register the marriage. If you want to be a foreigner in Japan and enter on your foreign passport, the spouse visa thing only works if you have registered your marriage as a foreigner:Japanese and not if you put her on your koseki.

You can do both possibilities of marriage registration and apply for your passport outside Japan at your nearest embassy.

sorry 2nd para got messed up:
should read
As to the marriage - if you register your wife on your koseki (i.e if you marry as a Japanese to Japanese), then your wife's name will become the one listed on your koseki. As for every normal Japanese marriage, there is no way to avoid this.

If your surname has a kanji root, then it used to be possible for you to use that as an alias, probably your wife too if a katakana version has to be employed on her koseki.

Just wanted to add that in the past it was not possible for the Japanese spouse to use a Kanji alias unless the country of origin also used Kanji officially on documents. I'm not sure how it works nowadays, but I suspect it would be similar.

Yllwsmrf: I will need to apply for a spouse visa because my wife will eventually come to live with me in the United States. My wife told me we have 3 months after our marriage to report our marriage.

Lady Kodaira: My wife and I know trying to get the kanji for her last name could be more of a hassle, but we'd like to explore what options there are. We do not mind using katakana because the name is not the important part, but rather the spouse visa to get here her is. Sorry if I didn't not clarify that we have plans to live in the U.S. beforehand. I am still exploring all possible options and thanks to people like you I can think more. As of now, it seems as if going the katakana way is easier so it doesn't make the spouse visa process more complicated with the passport and writing info on the papers.

If there is anything else you could add that would be helpful, please let me know. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I will need to apply for a spouse visa because my wife will eventually come to live with me in the United States. My wife told me we have 3 months after our marriage to report our marriage.

I see, then that will set how you do the process. You should report as a foreigner/Japanese rather than Japanese/Japanese then.

My wife and I know trying to get the kanji for her last name could be more of a hassle, but we'd like to explore what options there are.

I believe she would only have the option to retain her family name in kanji. If she takes your name she'll probably have to go by katakana. The reason I say this is I am also American with a Japanese last name (and kanji too) but our city hall said that my wife cannot use a kanji alias because the US does not kanji officially.

Yllwsmrf:

I think what I have heard is that she can retain my kanji as long as I go over to JP and present my koseki along with hers and also get a passport there and reenter the U.S. with a Japanese passport because they would have no way of knowing since the JPN govt and US govt are not connected. If you ask the city hall then of course they are gonna say otherwise I am sure.

Wow, sounds complicated. Unfortunately, I can't say how the system works anymore since they revised the resident card/alien registration system. I guess you get to be the test case. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Since the Japanese government does not allow dual citizenship, there is a possibility that such rights are forfeited Japanese citizenship to your possession. Then there is the effort required to select a nationality by the Nationality Act of Japan, to reach the 22-year-old to you. However, there is no penalty because it's effort obligation.

In fact, I have heard that there are many people who are without selecting a nationality.

I think for the time being, if you're going to keep the Japanese nationality, not you need to apply for a spouse visa.
Even if you select the Japanese citizenship, application for the revocation of citizenship to the US is only effort obligation of Japan Law, it does not lose the US nationality automatically.

I think it requires you to be used not only in this forum, to consult a legal expert. I think that if you and your wife live in Japan, you are good to keep Japanese citizenship.

Yllwsmrf, thanks for clearing that up, so it is kanji use in documents from country of citizenship that count.


Note that both countries require entry/exit on that country's passport and both countries take fingerprints of non-citizens. Be very careful in trying to enter on one passport and leave on a different one as you could end up being an illegal overstayer, despite being a citizen.

To the OP:This is really complicated, and I'm still not sure I entirely understand what you want to do and why.

Do you mean you want to a apply for a spouse visa to go to Japan? Or your wife wants to apply for a spouse visa to live in USA?

Did you say you want to re-enter USA with Japanese passport? Then you will only have a 90 visa to stay in USA before you have to leave?

If you want her to take your name in kanji, just register your marriage and have her moved to your koseki, like any normal Japanese marriage, no need to go to Japan.

Is this right?

1) You (a US citizen) married a Japanese citizen, under US law and have a US marriage certificate.

2) Your wife wants to apply for a US spouse visa based on your citizenship

3) You want to change your wife's surname to match yours in her Japanese passport and be able to use your surname is US.

4) She understandably wants to retain a surname in kanji on her Japanese records.

5) You have retained Japanese citizenship also, and could try to use this to get your surname in kanji onto your wife's record.

Have I got this right?

2 ways that I reckon will achieve this outcome.

A) Move your wife to your koseki. She will take your surname, it will be in kanji (if yours is on your koseki). You can apply via the embassy, with your Japanese passport or your koseki tohon. Her passport will be stamped to say her new name, or she can apply for a replacement passport. Then apply for the US spouse visa using US marriage certificate as usual.

B) Register your marriage at the embassy with you as a foreign (US) citizen. The marriage can be added to your wife's family record as a footnote. She will retain her maiden name (in Kanji). She can then opt to have your surname added to her passport. There will be a stamp saying, she is known as "your_US_surmane_in_roman_letters", or in a new passport it is added in brackets after her romanized maiden name. She can then use either name for official purposes.

It is possible if the embassy see your Japanese passport lacks a US visa, they might realise you have dual passports, but they probably won't care, and even if they do not a lot they can do.
If you are trying to use a koseki tohon in Japan as document to show that your name is officially kanji and are trying to register the marriage as US citizen:Japanese citizen, they might be rather suspicious about why you aren't adding her to your koseki.

what is your real purpose ?
what is the benefit ?

In the case of international marriage, need not be the same family name in the couple. It is possible to select one or the other course, if it is over 6 months of marriage, it must be filed in the family court.

The issue of whether to katakana the family name, it is necessary to consider by dividing the problem of spouse visa. Not directly related to them.

I would towards the other respondents. I think that he and his wife wants to live in Japan. He came to this forum in order to solve the problem. Rather than say a lot of things to him, I think better to advice so that it can be resolved smoothly is good.

What do you think about this?

If I understand it correctly, you want to apply for a spouse visa to temporarily live in Japan together with your wife, but both plan to move to the US at a later date. The issue regarding naming is that your wife would prefer to take your name and officially use kanji for it while in Japan. Is that correct?

- If you want to use your koseki in Japan, and if your wife wants to change her family name to yours, you will take your US marriage certificate to Japan, have it translated (she can do it herself too), and register your US law-based marriage with the Japanese authorities. Her family name will be changed to yours, because it is Japanese-to-Japanese marriage, in however way your family name is written in your koseki.

- If you plan to live in Japan for a while with her, and want to go to for Japanese spouse visa, that koseki of yours will be the basis for it.

- If you have dual citizenship but want to use your US name and if your wife wants to change her family name to your US name (I guess it is written in romaji?), you will take your US marriage certificate to Japan, have it translated, and register your US law-based marriage with the Japanese authorities, and she can opt to change her family name to yours. In this case, since it will be considered Japanese-to-non-Japanese marriage, her marriage to you will be entered into her koseki, with the remark that she has changed her name to your family name.

- If you plan to apply for spouse visa for HER to live in the US, this might be easier.

Either way it is a bit complicated, and you will need to sort out the dual citizenship bit.

At first I thought you had different surnames in the US and Japan and that you were worried about a mysterious third name appearing on her passport. But your father is Japanese so your surname in Japan and the US should be the same. I have no clue what you're concerned about.

Why would it matter if your wife's name is written in kanji or katakana? Do you even have to submit a family register to get a US visa? Her name in her passport won't be written in either kanji or katakana.

If your name is Mike Tanaka, your wife's name in her passport will be Hiromi Tanaka. What's the problem? Someone explain it to me.

If you're concerned about a JPN spouse visa, well, don't be concerned. You're supposed to register your marriage as a Japanese and live here as a Japanese. You don't need a visa. I think you're making things way more complicated than it needs to be.

Oh, sorry, for the first case I outlined above, you don't need a Japanese spouse visa because you have Japanese koseki.

If you want to report it as Japanese-to-Japanese marriage, this could cause complications because you got married in the US as a US citizen, so there will be a bit of discrepancy between your marriage certificate (US national) and your Japanese nationality :(

if a man is 田中 and a woman is 佐藤.
a man's US name is TANAKA.
a man's 田中 has no US citizenship.
the first case of ＡＫ:
a woman is a wife of 田中 under Japanese law, but not a wife of TANAKA. Can she and he prove their marriage under US law ?
what will happen on her Japanese passport. she gets a US spouse visa stamp on her Japanese passport. But, the passport will be only valid for 10 years. if she try to renew it, what will happen ? she is a spouse of US citizen, but she already married with Japanese 田中 in her koseki. if she marry with US citizen, can she get US passport ?

a woman is a wife of 田中 under Japanese law, but not a wife of TANAKA. Can she and he prove their marriage under US law ?

Actually this was a big question I had in my mind, because the "Mr. Tanaka" on the US marriage certificate will be a US national, and the one that has the Japanese koseki is a Japanese national. That is why I call this case quite complicated.