Looking for some help or advice.
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We recently have had our first baby and looking at having the surname as the mothers (Japanese) registered here in Japan ie, Tom Tanaka, and my last name (Australian) and a middle name (mothers surname) registered in Australia ie, Tom Tanaka Smith. Any experiences people could share pertaining to this question would be most appreciated even if you think it could dual names could be problematic down the line for my child.
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Thank you
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Edit: Made my question more clear.
8 comments
If they choose Australian citizenship but then come to japan they will have a lot of pain with the middle name as their official name. Long, doesn’t fit in some forms, just a major pain in the butt. As someone with two middle names here, I would anti-recommend middle names to anyone who wants a kid to be here.
I do not have the experience of differing surnames in different countries, but honestly I could only imagine it being a pain generator. Remember, in Japan you can’t just use “whatever name you want” in most things (I don’t know if you can make an alias to override your surname for example), so any document generated with the Japanese name will now need to be accompanied by “proof” of this person being the same as the person with a different surname in another country for any cross-country interaction (visa application stuff in particular). This isn’t an impossible process (people change their last names after all!) but it’s a thing.
I am constantly fretting that my parents gave me a name that is both easy to mispronounce, long, and just annoying.
We don’t have kids yet but I’ve already basically decided to name my children in a way that makes life painless, and long names are painful. Differing names are painful.
If you care about what is easy for the kid to deal with later in life, a name that is Japanese, not very long, and easy for Australians to pronounce is the way to go.
Having said all that you should do what feels right. The “straightforward” thing would be to use the same surname in both countries. Consider the value of your pride on this point (easy for me to say as I do not plan on passing down my surname of course)
Half here: My foreign passport is Smith and Japanese is Tanaka (Smith).
It has been absolutely fine until now, but I got married recently and my Japanese wife can not get (Smith) in her passport so it may be an issue if we ever move to my home country for visa/marriage certificate reasons.
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Just FYI, this might be tricky to pull off, if you’re living in Japan and the kids are born here.
All their official paper work will be in the Japanese last name only, so when you initially get Australian citizenship and passport for the baby, you will only have paperwork with the Japanese last name and thus can only register you baby in Australia with their Japanese last name.
You can legally change the last name in Australia, but your baby needs to live there for a year prior to changing their name. So, I think your plan can only be pulled off if you move back to Australia for at least a year.
Congratulations!
Names.
Just first and last fits well in Japan. Having a middle name (or worse, “multiple” names in between the first and last), or a hyphenated name, while possible, can be difficult here.
And if the child will have more than one nationality, please, have the same legal name across all documents and IDs.
Sorry if this is irrelevant because I’m from the US, but we registered our son with a Japanese first and last name here, then registered him with a middle name on his US paperwork and have had absolutely no problems with it. I suppose if he decides to renounce Japanese citizenship and still live here that the middle name might be annoying, but that’d be one of the least of his issues, I’d think. And not like he couldn’t register his Japanese name as his official alias to make things easier just like his mom did. 😅
Not what you are proposing, but note that it is also possible to split your kid off onto their own koseki, and give them your last name. If you fill out the 非ヘボン式 bit on their Japanese passport application then the two passports will match exactly.
Please don’t give your fucking kids fucking middle names if you want them to live in Japan.