I’ve been in Japan for almost 5 years and married for 6. I’m going to be applying for my PR soon but that’s another story. Anyways my wife never took my last name since we planned to live in Japan. Last week after doing my banking, my bank book was full. I went into the bank for a new bank book and they told me that my wife has to come in to do it. This triggered a thought. If something happened to my wife, I couldn’t get money to pay the hospital.. My wife and I started talking. Not only that situation but when we have children they will have the last name on the family registry which is hers.
One way we could go is have her go to court and change her last name. The only problem is that her family is wealthy and important and with the kanji used in their name being very rare, it will be ideal for me to take that name. 椙山 is her last name, in fact there is only 2 families in all of Japan that use this kanji.
There was only 2 concerns, how to do it and ask our fathers. After learning how to with help from Gaijinpot’s forum, I learnt it was easy since I was married. I contacted the passport office about it and after 24hrs they replied with instructions. Here’s how to do it.
1. Go to your city hall and get them to add an alias on the back of your card. e.g. 椙山ライアン
2. While you’re there, go and change your health insurance to your alias.
3. Now wait for your new Health card to come as you need the above as supporting ID.
4. Get all your regular passport application documents together along with the support Id, Marriage Certificate and Family Registry. Go to the passport center and you should receive your new passport with your new name in about 3 weeks.
Now I am Canadian and in Canada if we get married we can use our spouse’s name without any paperwork so I would check the law in your country. From tomorrow I start the first step and I will update you all on the process once it’s complete.
I have received a lot of grief over this decision but I think it’s for the best. As for asking my father, he said it is a wise idea in my situation. He also said I will always have my Norwegian heritage no matter what my name is. The truth is no matter what my last name is on paper, I will still be mostly known as Ryan Sensei and that’s great for me.
Ryan Solberg
