Hello!
I need help with changing my name while living in Japan.
I married my husband about 8 months ago in Japan. We are both foriegners. I would like to change my last name to his but after calling the town hall in my city, they said there is no paperwork they can do to change my name as neither of us are Japanese. He said that I will have to go through my embassy (I am American, my husband is French). When I looked it up online, the only application i can find is to change my passport. However to do that, it indicated that I need a certified document to reflect the name change. The only thing i have is our marriage certificate which only has my maiden name written on it.
I’m not sure where to go now to change my name. I know i can make an appointment to the embassy but its a lot of work just to ask a question that could be answered over the phone
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Please help if anyone has any idea or experience.
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Ps. I didnt look into this properly earlier as we had to go overseas for our ceramony 5 months after we signed the papers, and i was worried that to change my name, i needed to send in my passport which meant i couldnt go abroad if they didnt send it back in time.
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3 comments
You can’t email or call the American embassy? Canada’s embassy is great via email.
Looking at a few websites briefly, I think the marriage certificate is proof of the *reason* to change your name, not proof of a name change. I don’t think it is expected that your name appears changed on the certificate.
I’m American and just did this.
1) change your American passport. You do this by sending in a copy of your Japanese marriage certificate with a translation (you can find a template on the embassy’s website, just fill in the blanks, can do it yourself) with a passport renewal application. Your marriage certificate will also have your husband’s name on it, which is proof of justification for name change. You write that name on your passport renewal application.
2) change your residence card. You have to submit a form to change the info on your card. Bring old and new passport, and marriage certificate. It’s free, and you’ll get a new card in a few minutes.
3) go to city hall with your new residence card and old one, and explain that you changed your name, to change your name on juminhyo and my number (and health card if you have national health insurance)
4) change anything else (driver’s license, bank account, company info, US social security card, etc.)
As others mentioned, your marriage certificate works.
Because you’re not a Japanese citizen, they use your legal name on the document (which, at the time of filing, is your maiden name).
A Japanese spouse proves their new legal name by the new koseki, and since you don’t have that for obvious reasons, you just submit the marriage document.