tl;dr: Forced name reading doesn’t match passport spelling? You may be out of luck.
Starting from 2024, Japanese citizens will be required to register an official syllabary reading (furigana) to their family registry, e.g. 光 = ヒカル = Hikaru.
The reading registry will supposedly be mandatory and must be done within one year of the law coming into effect. In fact, city halls are already asking current registry changes to include furigana on any registry updates, as I recently found out.
The problem is that Japan also doesn’t allow for alphabet-based passport name changes unless the actual kanji itself changes. Why? Because “you’ll become a different person.” Is it politically motivated conservatism in a country where gender identity is only just now being “contemplated”? Is it due to outdated systems that can’t handle simple name updates? Is it severe brain damage all the way to the top? The possibilities are endless!
So, if you have a passport registered as “Hikaru” but decide to register your reading as “Hikari” on the registry for personal reasons, it creates a huge catch 22 in their plans to slowly incorporate official readings into everything, as your passport name needs to match the name on your registry.
Being the curious little goblin that I am, I called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to gather insight into their plans to tackle this issue and received the following answers:
Answer 1: “Who knows.”
Answer 2: “I guess they can’t travel easily anymore.”
Answer 3: “They should consider changing everything else in their life to match their passport.”
Japan frequently raises the bar for bureaucratic lunacy. Plenty of other countries allow for name changes on passports if presented proof of the name being registered elsewhere, so imagine my surprise when the government’s response for such an extremely likely hypothetical is nothing more than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
So, my question for is: are there any governments as utterly incompetent than my own? In a country of extreme patriotic pride, are they really going to prioritize the Latin alphabet over their own writing system?
It’s hard to imagine why they won’t let people change their Latin alphabet readings by simply applying for a new passport and paying the fee.
7 comments
Most Japanese don’t hold passports. Most people also don’t use multiple readings for their name.
> as your passport name needs to match the name on your registry
I don’t think there is any issue. I do not think they check your Koseki every time you use your passport. I assume when you renew your passport they will give it whatever you registered in koseki. Until that time you can just use the passport as normal.
Japan has terrible bureaucracy, but I think this seems like a step in the right direction.
The alternative would be bad, to have the registers at city hall remain in Japanese characters, meaning IT progress is hindered.
My wife tried to change her kanji reading to the correct kanji reading for her passport, they refused saying she’s not able to change it, so now her passport is her only government document with a different name than the rest of her official documents, it makes it difficult when traveling different countries using multiple IDs because the names don’t match
>why? because “you’ll become a different person”
Yes. I don’t see what the problem is?…. 🤷♂️
Identification cards/documents must perfectly match the legal record they are tied to. For example:
A driving license is merely identification which is linked to one’s driving record. If you change address for example you must update that on your driving record and then have it added to the DL card, so the DL card can continue to reflect reality as proof of the driving record it’s tied to. Same as if you change your name.
Also The same as a zairyu card is merely identification linked to a foreigner’s immigration status + address. If you change your name, nationality, gender, DOB (if even possible to change DOB) you go to immigration and they update that information on the immigration status and issue a new zairyu card so the card can reflect reality by matching the immigration record it’s tied to. If you change your address you go to the municipality office and have the address updated on the card to reflect reality.
All the attributes on identification MUST match reality/database side record for the identification to be valid…. That’s pretty normal.
So It’s important to understand a passport is merely identification which is linked to one’s nationality. (The Koseki is what determines Japanese nationality, thus the passport must match the Koseki)
as for Japan prioritizing Latin alphabet over its own, that makes sense consider a passport is used for international travel. And the world uses the Latin alphabet as the universal alphabet.
So Hikaru can tell/ask people to refer to them as Hikari, that is not a problem (they can also set up an alias too) But their legal name is Hikaru, and thus identification must state Hikaru unless they legally change it to Hikari
> Plenty of other countries allow for name changes on passports if presented proof of the name being registered elsewher
I don’t believe this is true? I think most countries require the name registration to occur in the person’s place of citizenship, and most countries also place restrictions on what kind of name changes you can do.
As for the readings themselves, since there’s this one-time change, you’re going to be allowed to change your reading if the city gov’t “guesses wrong”. So there will be plenty of people who don’t change the kanji but change the name, and might have to get an adjustment on their passports.
Let’s not forget that this country forces people to change their last names when getting married, so “name change” procedures exist!
I had a coworker who changed their first name and got things changed up. The simplest explanation for MOFA not having a good answer is that the thing hasn’t happened yet, and when it happens things will be changed up.
Readings being known to the gov’t is actually useful.
Considering there are at least a dozen countries I am aware of with baby naming laws, several that would not allow freedom of choice, certain alternate spellings of allowed names, or official pronunciations I’d say Japan isn’t as big an outlier as you might think.
What id be more interested in is if this will impact people who have foreign (katakana) names on all their official documents.
It sounds silly and poorly thought out, and I’m not sure why it’s a priority at all. Relatedly, my surname has multiple capital letters (e.g. “McDonald”), which a passport has to indicate with a space (“Mc Donald”), even though my name has no space. Japan is the only place where this inconsistency has been an issue.
My 在留カード has to match my passport, so now I have to fill out all official documents with a misspelling of my last name. Which also makes it more confusing for people to read/pronounce (“‘Mc’?? What is ‘Mc’? Is it ‘Mr.’?”). And of course there are search interfaces that can’t handle the space too. Sigh.
> In a country of extreme patriotic pride, are they really going to prioritize the Latin alphabet over their own writing system?
I’ve often thought the same thing, but from immigrants’ perspective too. This has been a huge problem for immigrants since 2012, and it’s completely inexplicable compared to how most countries force people to use *only* the local writing system. Back then, on the alien cards you could get katakana printed below your Roman-letter name *plus* you could get an alias handwritten on the back. The new resident card system took both of those away and has resulted in thousands of newcomers unfairly having massive hassles getting started with banking and similar services because they lack official recognition of their names in the local writing system.
I can’t address the problem with Japan not letting you change your Roman-letter spelling on passports, but I’m hoping that the addition of phonetic kana to the resident registries means that foreign people might finally get default recognition of their names in katakana back.