Hi guys, please dont grill me to hard, I have made calls and written emails and searched myself for about a week since realising I have no clue and I am still none the wiser.
I want to know, if you passport changes by showing your academic title as in
name: Fuji ==> name: Dr. Fuji
Does anyone know how far the changes reach? Any experience do to it smoothly?
1. Does this constitute a name change for immigration? (in which case, I know I have to go and file the change)
2. How does it affect the pension book and other things of daily life? (I mean, obviously, I update the banks, but otherwise, whom should I follow up with? Do I have to worry about my pension book being out of order again like the name in Katakana already caused before, and should check up with them about it in person?)
3. Can an alias registration of “Fuji” (romanji) prevent having all documents change to “Dr. Fuji” now?
Any info or kind advice helps.
9 comments
I’m hoping you’re a newly qualified medical doctor, not someone who has a PhD in chiropractionary.
I don’t think name in passports should include obtained titles. I don’t think there’s any country that does that. That’s just weird.
How self absorbed must you be to include your academic title in your legal name? And while it is possible to change your legal name to include Dr, you will have to change your legal name across all of your other legal documentation as well – banks, cards, licenses, registrations, etc.
All that for a legal name which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a real doctor.
Snoop Dogg changing his name to Snoop Lion doesn’t make him a lion. On legal names, Ron Artest changing his name to Metta World Peace doesn’t make him World Peace – it just changes his name.
Most people just add it as a prefix/suffix to their name in documents and never bother with adding it to their legal name.
Is your legal name now literally “Dr Zoidberg” or still just “Zoidberg”?
If it’s just “Zoidberg” then you don’t need to do anything as titles are not reflected on our status of residency.
However, if your legal name is now “Dr Zoidberg” then you need to update it with immigration: https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/nyuukokukanri10_00009.html
Edit: if your legal name has actually changed the regarding updating your pension and health insurance if you’re enrolled in Shakai Hoken you’d need to speak to your employer. If you’re enrolled in Kokumin then speak to your municipality office
I noticed that one of my colleagues had his Dr. title in his passport when we were on a work trip a few years back – I was a bit surprised as my country doesn’t include any titles in passports, but apparently plenty of other countries do. (Some countries also include Mr. / Ms. / etc. as a default title, apparently.)
He didn’t mention having any difficulties with it in terms of Japanese bureaucracy, which makes sense – it’s your title of address, not part of your name, and shouldn’t be considered to be a name change or included in your katakana name. In fact, it shouldn’t be in your legally registered name in Japan at all, since Japanese legal names do not include academic titles.
(FWIW, his reason for deciding to include his title on the passport was actually to make things easier with some aspects of bureaucracy – as a brown-skinned man with a “foreign-sounding” name, he reckoned that having an academic title on his official ID document helped to ease the process with everything from airport security to opening bank accounts.)
Why would a passport need to include your title? How conceited are you?
As someone with a PhD, just call me by my first name.
Just don’t do it. You are asking for millions of problems coming your way that are all optional and avoidable…
I am Dr. chemistrybear, from Germany. And it is part of my ID (but doesn’t really become part of the name as some suggest here, there is a fine difference). But that doesn’t mean that for the Japanese it should become part of my name or resident card.
If you are usually discriminated in Japan (young, brown or black skin, or from SEA), it helps a lot. If you are white European above your 30s, probably won’t make any difference in Japan.
My friend is brown and has a “professor” visa. It helped him a lot when house-hunting, renting cars, and police stops. He makes sure to show his passport on the visa page first instead of ID whenever useful. People’s change instantly from “we can’t rent to foreigners” to “oh, you are a sensei!”