I’ve been wanting to register a legal alias for convenience reason in business and just in daily life in general, but failed to do so when I went to my local ward office last month. For what it’s worth, the alias is just something like “Joe Biden” from “Joseph Robinette Biden”.
Before I went to the ward office I did call them previously, and the person on the phone told me to prepare for the procedure (bringing proof that I use the name from utility bills and stuff). However when I actually went to the office, I ended up with a huge no as an answer. Their reasoning was the regulation has become more strict lately and that you can’t just “make up” a name to use like so. They however do accept an alias for marriage reason or some other specific reason.
So has anyone successfully registered an alias with similar reason lately? How did you do it? Is it just a matter of my ward office/the particular person in charge being more strict than usual?
Also as an additional question, what are the consequences if I use my alias anyway in my workplace/business scene, without registering it in the ward office? My office has already “approved” the alias and I’ve been using it inside the office, but is it really okay to do, and what happens if I have to sign up a contract or something with that name?
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Article 12 section 9 of the personal nomenclature code stats “There shall be no impersonating sitting or former presidents when choosing a legal alias.”
No surprise to me, they wouldn’t let me drop one of my last names to make a 通称名 so I’m stuck with this weird katakana amalgamation of both of them.
If you can get it on your health insurance card from work first, that will carry more weight than utility bills (at least what I was told, probably depends on the city).
I did this a few weeks ago. IIRC, just filled out one form (or 2?). Staff person said that I was good to go after that.
My ward, Setagaya, was already on the strict side when I did it seven years ago. I remember there were six specific categories of people who could get an alias and if you weren’t one of those, no dice. (I only remember three: for foreign spouses of a Japanese citizen (my case), zainichi Koreans, and famous figures with a pen name)
Immigration asked if I wanted to add a kanji name and I said yes, and came up with my ideal name on the spot. Got it added to residence card and now have the option to put it on license etc too.
I did a few months ago when I signed up for the my number card because I wanted to have my legal alias also written in the card.
Went to ward office and just showed my health insurance card and a year worth of electric bills under my alias as proof. As for the health insurance card, I registered my alias when my I entered my current company so my alias written on the health insurance card.