I just noticed recently that my name in katakana for the pension and health insurance is wrong. It’s just one character, but it irks me very much. I don’t know how this started because everytime I am asked to write my name in katakana, I always write it the same way.
Is this gonna affect anything? Is it okay to just leave it alone? If not, how do I change this one character?
6 comments
It doesn’t matter. Your katakana name is not your legal name in Japan. Your legal IDs will always have your romaji name, so that is the one that matters.
Similar thing happened to me. In practice, not much problems because everything is done via MyNumber so claiming pension in retirement, and using your health insurance card is not a problem as such.
But I still got it changed to the correct katakana because when I submit my PR application in the future, I need to prove pension and health insurance payments. However, the pensionID number and health insurance ID number *should* be redacted (as per immigration’s instructions).
So your PR application is not going to look good if you submit your pension/health insurance records with incorrect katakana on them.
To get it fixed you need to speak to your HR. If you’re not enrolled in Shakai Hoken, then maybe speak to your municipality/ward office?
> I don’t know how this started because everytime I am asked to write my name in katakana, I always write it the same way.
Someone in HR transliterated your name when they signed you up.
This happened to me and I lost half my fking nenkin. Gone. No trace. Check into it.
It happened to me too, that I suddenly got new health insurance card and everything else with a “wrong” name on it. Over the phone I was told that someone at the ward office had just decided to write my name differently, and all hell broke loose 🙂
Of course, they wouldn’t just change it back, as it was clearly a “mistake” on the side of the ward office; and they could have done it within 5 minutes obviously, as this “mistake” had happened this way. I had to officially apply for a “name change” to change it back to what it had been for decades. Took a few months.
Oh well…
It’s better to just leave it. I have the same issue.
One of my middle names is katakana-ized incorrectly, because my very first employer decided that the katakana I provided them of my name was wrong (without telling me) and they went and changed it …. My romaji name is correct, but it still bothers me.
One of my names has “Jo” in it and it’s pronounced ヨ、but it got “fixed” to ジョ。
I hate hate hate it but it’s too much of a pain to change it, so I just live with it.