Koseki and International Marriage

I'm non-Japanese but married a Japanese woman. My wife now has her own Koseki with her maiden name "Noriko Kimura" (not real name). And my name "John Doe" is registered under her Koseki. But she appears as the head of the family. We recently have a son. I wanted my son to be registered as "Alex Doe" in the Koseki but I was told it's not allowed. So to get my surname in, we registered him as "Kimura, Alex Doe" where "Alex Doe" is his firstname and Kimura is his surname. Does anyone have this experience? How do I give my son my surname in this Koseki thing? The system in Japan is so incredibly inflexible!

Your city hall seems to be rather behind in this area, different city halls can give you different answers. You ought to be able to register the baby with your last name. Perhaps see if your embassy has advice on how to proceed or search via Google.

depends - different city halls give different answers? seems like they themselves don't know the actual answer or they've made the system too complicated. I've been googling but don't find any relevant answers.

Japanese "koseki" does not allow non-Japanese to be officially entered in the main text (my marriage to my non-Japanese husband appears on the "remarks" column, so I guess that's what is happening to you as well). Since it is your wife's "koseki," there is no way to officially enter your son's name as Alex Doe there. He gets entered there, so he automatically takes the wife's family name. That's the limitation of "koseki" system....

The way I understand it is that, currently, the two of you are like a couple who have opted to keep your respective family names independently. So if you want your child to be able to be registered under your family name, (1) your wife would first need to apply to change her family name to yours, (2) or, there seems to be a procedure where the child can have "koseki" on his own (after once been registered under your wife's, as currently he is), with the name he wants (or the parents want to give him). Both procedures do involve family court, and (1) would involve the hassle of your wife having to change every registration she has in Japan.

BTW, I know this is no comfort, but for your information....
I don't know what your wife's passport currently says as her name, but for passport, she can ask the passport issuing authority to show her name as:
- Noriko Kimura (Doe)
The non-Japanese spouse's family name can be added in parenthesis, so that when you travel outside Japan together, the two of you can easily show that you are a married couple. This is what I have, actually.
So in the same way, for your son's passport, I am sure you can ask to have his name stated as:
- Alex Kimura (Doe).

I think the easiest way to deal with "koseki" name is to regard is as an outdated (but still currently in use) system, and take practical approach around it...

AK - thanks so much! You've provided lots of useful insights. I did want my wife to change her name to my surname but as you said, she mentioned its too troublesome (however, I do have friends whose wives have changed their names but they didn't bother to change anything else such as bank account, drivers license, etc and they have had no problems). She did change her passport to Noriko Kimura (Doe) as you mentioned. As for my son, he's currently registered in the Koseki as Alex Doe Kimura. So to have his name in passport appear as Alex Doe Kimura (Doe) would be wierd. My wife suggested going through the court to change my son's name to Alex Kimura so that his passport name could be Alex Kimura (Doe). But I guess its just me being a traditional Asian man, I feel uneasy having my son registered in Koseki as Alex Kimura. I'll find out more about giving my son his own koseki. Or maybe I'll just let it remain as Alex Doe Kimura and his passport name would say the same??? (at least I got my surname in there somewhere!) :) On a separate note, surely you and I can't be the only international marriage in Japan. I would have thought they would have made the system to accomodate these situations.

Since you say you "recently" had your son, I thought I'd just remind you that your son needs to write his full koseki name every time he fills in official documents as well as official school examinations.

When the child is still learning his a-i-u-e-o's, this can be a slight disadvantage as his name would be much longer than his schoolmates. It's not really a big issue, but I thought I'd just remind you since a lot of people seem to forget that.

...So to have his name in passport appear as Alex Doe Kimura (Doe) would be wierd.
You are right.

Or maybe I'll just let it remain as Alex Doe Kimura and his passport name would say the same???
For the time being, that may be the least hassle way to deal with it :) On his passport, I think it will be Alex Doe Kimura, as it appears on his koseki, so Doe will be there as part of his given name for sure :)

Uco - we're not living in Japan so I don't see that as a problem.

AK - thanks!

How does his name appear on his birth certificate in your home country then?

Joe,

Tilt beat me asking same. I like to expand the arguments by having you consider my questions. I could be wrong for surmising you to be an American (if I am wrong, I apologize ahead).

(a). How significant Japanese citizenship versus U.S. citizenship when a person is raised in other than his birth country?

(b). What difference does it make by correcting the family registry - will you love your son more?

No need to reply - private matter.

It may be a minor detail but I believe your son's actual Japanese name is Alexdoe Kimura, as Japan doesn't have middle names. He can have his Japanese passport written as Alexdoe Kimura (Alex Doe).

I think you can use the foreign birth certificate or passport to demonstrate to the Japanese authorities how your son's name should be written, Also it is very important that there is consistency on his passports because this can sometimes lead to problems when traveling abroad. At the very least you should make sure that his Japanese passport shows the name on his birth country/your country's passport in parentheses next to the the Japanese version of his name.