This is for all the parents with halfie daughters.
30F born **Hanako Jane Smith** in Australia. Dual citizen with the name **Yamada HanakoJane** in Japan and (Smith) on my J passport.
Got both my 10 year passports done in Australia at 20 and dreaded the day I had to renew it. I read up on the “I’m choosing Japan” thing and how to get around it.
I got married last year and had to renew my J passport and change the name. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep (Smith) because it isn’t even considered a maiden name in Japan.
Reason for wanting to keep Smith: (not sure if it’s even going to help) but I am currently pregnant with my first child and want to give it the choice of living in Australia as a citizen. In doing this, I need to provide evidence that Yamada (now Takeda) HanakoJane who gave birth is infact the same person as Hanako Jane Smith. I was scared that getting rid of Smith on every single J document I have would get me stuck with no way to link the 2 names.
Well, today I firstly went to the Aus embassy to renew my Aus passport. That took literally 3 minutes. Real good stuff Australia. Then I went to the passport center in Yurakucho and waited for 2hrs. Heart beating. Rehearsing my line “yes, I am choosing Japan. Iv been busy”. My number gets called. Lady looks at my form with a tick on “dual citizen”. Checks the next page requesting my gaijin surname in brackets.
She asks me “this is your fathers surname?” I said “yes, it’s my 旧姓 in Australia”. She says “ok, but I can’t put it down as *former surname*. It has to be *alternative surname*. Is that ok?” I say sure. She says 二重国籍の方は結婚すると2個書く人いますが、**Takeda Hanako Jane (Yamada Smith)** じゃなくていいですか？
I thought that was a little too much so I said just the Smith was good.
So all is good guys. She didn’t give a crap that I’m dual. Even made suggestions.
So once again, Pro tip I always give to halfie parents to be: don’t give your kid 2 surnames.
Next mission: “can HanakoJane Takeda get her kid an Aussie citizenship”
6 comments
Thanks for your first hand experience story!
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>She didn’t give a crap that I’m dual. Even made suggestions.
For the Australian part, that’s to be expected since there would be tons of dual citizens.
For the Japanese part, there are less people with dual citizenship but still happens quite a lot!
It’s funny, just like France you can have completely different name on your passeport. I could have my child name Yamada Taro on his JP passport and Pierre Dupont on his French one, and there would be no problem. At least until he wants to get married or do some specific paperwork then it becomes hell to prove those are the same person…
Nice, glad your name is reflected on your passport the way you want it to be! Interfacing with the government in these situations can be really stressful, I had a whole flowchart of how to bail out of my first conversation with city hall if it wasn’t going in a good direction.
Just a note about your daughter’s citizenships: I’ve seen in previous posts that children born to Australian parents outside of Australia are entitled to get Australian citizenships, but are not automatically Australian citizens at birth. Because of this technicality, your child may not enjoy the same tolerance of their Australian/Japanese dual citizenship that you do, since in Japan’s eyes you would have triggered Article 11 by “electing” to get your child Australian citizenship.
Someone in this situation posted a few years ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/l1u3n9/comment/gk2uyqd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/l1u3n9/comment/gk2uyqd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/j4fzks/comment/g7r83at/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/j4fzks/comment/g7r83at/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I don’t have any idea what the best thing to do for your family is in this situation, but just putting this here so you know how your daughter’s situation can differ from your own. Best of luck!
Good tip. Exactly what we did. Changed my wife’s Japanese surname to my name prior to our son‘s birth. Now he has exactly the same name in his foreign and Japanese passport.
Thanks for the public service announcement! Wishing you a smooth and lovely delivery of healthy little dual citizens!
One Name To Rule Them All.
Never understood the need to give a kid multiple names depending on national / cultural context. I mean I get it if someone thinks “least administrative hassle” is a dumb reason to ignore your cultural norms or whatever drives you to name you kid John Smith / Yamada Taro but…it’s actually a really good idea to avoid the What’s Your Name Struggle?
Props to those parents who name their kid like Ken or Emily and have the same one name regardless of passport.
Anyone can put a alternate name in brackets, not only mixed daughters.