So I am looking to work in Japan in the near future. Just had a question about hanko. Is it possible to get one with a kanji name as an American foreigner? Hear me out. I am half Chinese and have a Chinese name that easily translates to kanji. Both parts of the name are within my legal name. My first name is English but it is sort of long in katakana. Would it be allowed to use the kanji from my Chinese name translated to Japanese?
Edit: my last name is Chen (common enough) so at the very least, would I be able to incorporate 陳?
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**Foreigners and hanko**
So I am looking to work in Japan in the near future. Just had a question about hanko. Is it possible to get one with a kanji name as an American foreigner? Hear me out. I am half Chinese and have a Chinese name that easily translates to kanji. Both parts of the name are within my legal name. My first name is English but it is sort of long in katakana. Would it be allowed to use the kanji from my Chinese name translated to Japanese?
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You mean like your surname is Wang, so you want to use 王 right? Totally fine. It’s usually only weird when someone without any Chinese/Japanese background named ‘Smith’ uses random kanji like 田中.
So anybody can get any hanko that they want. The real question is what will be acceptable to wherever you’re trying to use it.
If you need to **register** your hanko (I didn’t need to do that until I started buying and selling cars), it will be up to your local ward office what they will accept, and it’s always a bit different in either case. In mine, they would only really accept my name in roman characters, but then someone there had the thought to register my katakana name as an alias and that let me register my katakana hanko.
It’s worth noting that your full legal name in Japan will be exactly whatever is written on your passport, in roman letters. Only people on Chinese or Korean passports can register kanji names in any official sense. They don’t care about your ethnicity; they care about your passport.
There are a few tiers of hanko. There are novelty hankos that you can use for basic things like signing for packages etc (although delivery guys have pens and I find signing is much easier). These can be pretty much whatever you want. A friend of mine uses a Yamaguchi hanko because its the first kanji he learned to write (山口).
For the most part though your name is the name that appears in your passport in the format that it is written in your passport. You can also choose your own katakana transliteration of this name, but make sure you keep it consistent. If you are loosey-goosey with the transliterations it can come back to bite you down the road.
You can register the kanji name as an official alias at cityhall when you register your address. Then you’d be able to use it for a number of things, although not everything (anyone that needs to verify your status of residence, like a bank, may require your legal name and not the alias). I’m not sure if you’d be allowed to register a hanko with your alias at cityhall for more official purposes (I’ve only ever used my official hanko for mortgage stuff).
My city specifically asked for my hanko to be in Romanji. Kanji is for Japanese and ok for Chinese. But it would be weird for a clearly foreigner to have a kanji hanko
Why do you need a hanko? I’ve been living here for 5 years and I’ve always used my signature for contracts and any other document I needed to sign.
>. Is it possible to get one with a kanji name as an American foreigner?
You can get a hanko with kanji if you like, the issue is rather if you’re able to use it to sign legal documents with.
You can definitely get one made though, no problems at all.
For a registered hanko (needed for bigger purchases, like cars, homes etc), you need to use an official name, so it would not work unless you’re able to officially register the kanji name somehow. I believe Chinese are able to use their kanji names, but they also have official documents to back it up.
You may be able to sign less official documents with the kanji stamp, but not sure where exactly the line is drawn (signing your mail receipt -> ok, signing for bank account -> probably not, signing work contract -> maybe!). You probably need to at least have an additional hanko with alphabet or katakana.
My ward specifically asked for my hanko to be in Romaji and it has to match with what I have on my residence card