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marriage to a japanese (changing your name)


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My family name sounds like a name with a long and distinguished history and I like some people say it is cool name. But my parents don't care about losing this name, so no problem for me to change my name.

Most of women in my office use their old family name and it's good for them because they don't need to change their name again when they get divorced, nobody will realize that. I didn't know so many women in my office had got divorced...

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 Quote:
Most of women in my office use their old family name and it's good for them because they don't need to change their name again when they get divorced, nobody will realize that.
Now theres a positive situation.
Picture this (newly wed couple)-
Husband : So honey are you going to take on my family name?
Wife: I don't think so!!
Husband: Why not?
Wife: So when we get divorced I don't have to change my name again!!
Husband: Oh OK!! Did you sign the pre nuptial? wakaranai.gif
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Thing is bobby12, if it bothers you that your wife will have to deal with racists, you've made yourself a problem. And by trying to dodge it with the name fudge, you're just postponing the moment. Better to have her CV binned by a suspicious employer than have her end up working there don't you think? Arranging your life to satisfy potential bigots doesn't result in much personal freedom I find.

 

But anyway, what's this fixation with 'Japanese racists'? Why not try changing your name to a Japanese name and go looking for jobs in the UK? See how many people wonder if you've 'gone native' and disqualify you because of it. It might be an eye opener for you.

 

Don't you feel a bit hypocritical saying 'changing my name would be weird' and then accepting that your wife takes a middle name which is weird for a Japanese person? If weird is good enough for her...

 

Changing your name can be interesting anyway. I did it once. When I first went to uni, I decided to be somebody else and told everybody my name was 'Harold' (an affectionate nickname my father used for me sometimes). All the new people I met knew me as Harold. But a couple of girl friends from my old school were there and they weren't having any of it. In fact, they didn't bother to hide their contempt for my 'pretense' and insisted on calling me 'Rod' which confused my new uni friends. They were the flies in my new identity ointment. (It also really bugged me when people shortened it to 'Harry' without asking.)

 

Then I dropped out of uni after one term and went back to being 'Rod' again. After the rest of the year off, I went to the same uni again and made a bunch of new friends. But people I had known before were still around and they all said "Oh Harold, you're back!". My new friends were asking me, "Why are those yahs calling you 'Harold'?"

 

As what slow says indicates, this pussyfooting around names is largely because people don't understand the old concept of marriage - to the detriment of all in my opinion. When you get married you make a package of deals. If you start chipping away at parts of the whole deal, it becomes less valuable.

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Most of women in my office use their old family name and it's good for them because they don't need to change their name again when they get divorced, nobody will realize that. I didn't know so many women in my office had got divorced...
Divorce is so 'rampant' then is it?
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my wife tried to do a

...... + Uchida + Kowal

and a judge shot her down. he said you cant

be japanese and have 3 names. Ocean is does

your kid legally have 3 names? if so how did you do it. Is there anyone out there who has a wife that could do this? This is what we want to show our kids where we come from. If we cant she will change her name for the kids.

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I dunno.

 

Why the fixation with having it all hankoed and on paper anyway? If you want to say "My kid has the following 3 names", what's to stop you doing it?

 

(I haven't found much use for my middle name in all my 37 years, apart from, er, writing it down on forms.)

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 Quote:
Originally posted by Fattwins:
I would like to give our children three names, so is it possible or impossible in japan?
Do what you like - F' the J-govt. Theyre a bunch of bureaucratic @ssholes anyways. What the Fuk do they know? This country, collectively, hasnt had a new idea in over 4 decades :rolleyes:
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I imagine they came in to distinguish all the 'John Smiths' and so on in Britain.

 

Ocean11 we have to agree to disagree - cant be assed to run thru your arguments with ya!

 

I'm trying to sort out the spouse visa now for my wife, it's a nightmare for me and English is my native language. God knows how the usual target audience gets on with it. I'm pretty sure the website and language is incomprehensible on purpose.

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 Quote:
Originally posted by Fattwins:
I would like to give our children three names, so is it possible or impossible in japan?
My son has a middle name so i guess it's possible fatty.
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My wife took my family name just recently, she'd continued to use her own for dealing with paperwork and such before that. Hell, I even use her name as my family name from time to time. At the drycleaners in my old neighbourhood and when I went to do something on behalf of the family, I was "Kubota san".

 

We never got in any hurry or even thought about changing names after we got married. Having a kid made formalising things seem more essential. Makes paperwork easier and will no doubt save us some hassles when we move the family out of Japan. I don't think it creates any problems for us in terms of racism and I would probably get some odd looks introducing my self as "Mr.Kubota" in NZ.

 

My wife can't pronounce my family name properly, but neither can most people. My girl is named "Moe", which is pretty hard for non Japanese to pronounce properly. So we got her a middle name "Ruth", which is a bit of a marbles in yer mouth deal for Japanese. It's a family name and, yes, you can have a middle name registered here. When we go overseas the girls and I will share a family name on the passports even though we're different nationalities.

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I should have mentioned that with my sons name, the ward office won't put a space between my sons first name and middle name so it looks like one long name.

Made a hassle with the passport because if the name is different from whats on the ticket you can't fly, so what we had to do was to get the aussie passport first and then the J passport would write his first & middle name with a space between.

 

My wife also continued using her maiden name at work and is still referred to as Maehara, doesn't bother me but does this mean she is planning to split??? \:\( Slow???

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Don't worry indo,

The name is not only reason they got divorced. Those women in my office work too hard. They never got home before 9pm and cooked dinner for their husband. Probably some of them have boyfriend in the office. I hate to know this kind of things in the office. I do respect working women but not all of them.

What is marriage? Where is love??

 

My nephew has dual citizenship and his middlie name is Alex. Because he was born in the US. I don't know his middle name is on Japanese register or not.

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My wife kept her maiden name & I kept mine. My daughter has two passports one japanese & one us the japanese one has her japanese surname & her us one has her western surname. no middle name.

My wife keeping her maiden name has made somethings easier here I think but I really couldn't say what. My house loan & small buissness loan are in my name so I dont think it matters to much. more just a personal pref.

but more importantly is congrats & good luck!!

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 Quote:
Originally posted by yamayamayama:
Middle names are completely useless aren't they. just what is the point? wakaranai.gif
IMO, middle names work to specify each and every person a bit more?
Japanese use an ideogram (kanji) to name babies but people who don't use ideograms, they just pick a name for a baby which might cause a lot of people with same name and surname.
Then if they have surnames probably it would help to specify people a bit more.
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 Quote:
Originally posted by Yamakashi:

Gaijins with Japanese names sound funnier than Japanese with foreign names.
confused.gif What about girl-gaijins? In a few years I'll be a Mizuguchi. Going to live in the UK though.
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