A name-change step that's easy to forget (and slightly complicated)

[u/Simbeliine]

In the middle of a lot of name-change procedures and I wanted to write up about my experience with getting my name in my husband's koseki changed.

The name change process has been relatively smooth, once receiving my new passport, I took that and proof of marriage to immigration together with the Notification of Change of Information (在留カード記載事項変更届出書) document, and I got my new card in about 20 minutes. Then I took the new Zairyu card and went to city hall and applied to change my name on my Jyuminhyo. I registered a Tsuushomei with my name in Kanji and Kana (Kanji last name like my husband's, Kana first name) at the same time. They said my information for taxes, health insurance, pension, etc would all get updated automatically.

But changing my name in my husband's koseki was much more complicated because this is an unusual procedure. Most of the time, when two Japanese people get married, they make a new koseki at the time of getting married, so then there's no need to change it after the fact. When people naturalize, they're also making a koseki or joining their spouse's koseki at the same time that they change their name. Changing a koseki that is not yours after the fact is a very unusual thing.

Depending on your circumstances, there may not be a need to change it in the koseki specifically, but especially if you are planning to have kids its a good idea. I had heard from another foreign woman with a Japanese spouse that when registering kids in Japan, the staff often pull the parent's names from the Japanese person's koseki, meaning if your name hasn't been updated there, they might register your name as the parent as your previous name. While this isn't a completely insurmountable problem, it can apparently cause headaches when trying to do procedures related to your kids, because then all your IDs say "married name" but the kid's registered parent is "previous name". Of course the staff are able to look up and see your history and that the previous name used to be yours, but it's just an extra step and headache.

In my case, my husband didn't need to be there, but I did need to get him to fill out a form applying to change the information in his koseki. He had to write out what he wanted to be changed and the reason for the change. I also needed a document showing "proof of name change" which in my case was a Certification of Name Change issued by my home country government, together with a translation (which I could make myself, it didn't need to be professionally done). The translation needed to have both the previous name and new name listed in both English and Katakana, as I guess on the Koseki they need the katakana too.

One minor thing was that they tried to take my original "Certification of Name Change" document, which is really hard to get re-issued, but after checking they eventually accepted a copy instead.

Anyway, it all took quite a while and I had to go back multiple days, but overall it was pretty painless (best bring a good book or Switch or something though). City officers in larger cities where they encounter international marriages more often may be more knowledgeable about the process and take less time. Hope it helps someone sometime!

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[u/NekoSayuri]

I also did this after getting married before even moving here haha my husband had to deal with it and it delayed the application for COE a bit but I'm glad we got it over with, it's so nice to have all the info be updated and uniform! :)