I’m going to japan for some job training, and I have a pretty long, hyphenated last name. The woman who’s arranging all of this told me that I should drop half of my last name, because that’s what I’m going to be referred to as and in Japan you can’t legally have a hyphenated name.
Honestly I would rather not, but I don’t want to make this experience more difficult than it’s already going to be.
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**Do I need to un-hyphenate my name?**
I’m going to japan for some job training, and I have a pretty long, hyphenated last name. The woman who’s arranging all of this told me that I should drop half of my last name, because that’s what I’m going to be referred to as and in Japan you can’t legally have a hyphenated name.
Honestly I would rather not, but I don’t want to make this experience more difficult than it’s already going to be.
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hmm, I have a regular length name, one first, middle, last. in the ward office they made me pick either just my first or middle name to put on paperwork as it was ‘too long’ otherwise. so maybe.
First of all, my friend has a hyphenated last name and she’s been in Japan for quite some time. I don’t know the logistics of it exactly but she uses it— when she writes it in katakana there is no hyphen, it’s just the names together.
I will say that sometimes it doesn’t fit into a form and that’s a pain in the ass— she’ll get a “sorry, 10 character limit” message or something.
Your official name will need to match whatever is on your passport so keep that in mind as well— it’s not like you can just randomly choose parts of your name to use in some situations. Opening a bank account, for instance— I don’t always use my middle name in Japan, but my bank account name had to match my passport, period.
>in Japan you can’t legally have a hyphenated name.
In Japan legally your name is what is written in your passport, in the way it is written in your passport. If that includes hyphens then it includes hyphens.
Practically it may cause issues with things like credit card applications or bank transfers. But nothing insurmountable.
How long are you going to be in Japan for?