I’m an American with an American first and last name but a Japanese middle name, that being Ai (愛). I’m currently applying for college in Japan and I was wondering how I should go about writing this name in forms. My name has never been written using Kanji of course given that I live in America, on my passport it’s just written as Ai. So for Japanese forms and applying for a Visa and such should I write my full name including my middle name entirely in Katakana, or should I write my first and last name in Katakana but my middle in Kanji?
(also slightly unrelated but should I write my name in the Japanese order of last name first and given name last or should I write it in the American order on my passport? I’ve seen a lot of conflicting information about this online so idk)
4 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**How should I write my name on forms with a Japanese middle name**
I’m an American with an American first and last name but a Japanese middle name, that being Ai (愛). I’m currently applying for college in Japan and I was wondering how I should go about writing this name in forms. My name has never been written using Kanji of course given that I live in America, on my passport it’s just written as Ai. So for Japanese forms and applying for a Visa and such should I write my full name including my middle name entirely in Katakana, or should I write my first and last name in Katakana but my middle in Kanji?
(also slightly unrelated but should I write my name in the Japanese order of last name first and given name last or should I write it in the American order on my passport? I’ve seen a lot of conflicting information about this online so idk)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is the kanji name given to you? If so, then use it. If not, then just use katakana. You can not really just put a kanji name especially if your using to visa or something I think.
Here in japan, you should write your surname first.
You write it in katakana unless you have a Japanese/Chinese passport that uses the kanji. Even people with a full Japanese name that don’t hold Japanese citizenship are required to write their name in katakana in Japanese forms (unless they register a legal alias).
You write what your passport says. Unless your country has kanji in the passport like China, then you can’t use kanji.
As for order, forms usually have separate fields for given name 名 and family name 氏. Your first and middle name go in given name. If there is only one box, write it in Japanese order: family given middle.
If there is a box for furigana, write your name in Latin letters with the Katakana above.