From: hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga)
Subject: Name Registration (Was: Re: Fingerprinting Gaijin)
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 11:18:15 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.030848.2069@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>By the way, I see nothing wrong with Japan having a law that requires
>all immigrants wanting citizenship to adopt a Japanese last name even
>though Japan does not currently have such a law.
>
>The law does not require a Japanese last name, but the immigration office
>will pressure a foreign to adopt one.  But this applies to all foreigners.
> ...
>Japanese law does not require name changes.

About the (last) name issue:
I'm not sure of the legal background, but the general policy of
name registration seems to be as follows:

* As for first names, the registered names (in KOSEKI) must use either
  kana, Jouyou-kanji, or JINMEI-kanji (284 of them, as of 1990).
  I don't think other characters (alphabets, hangul, etc.) are allowed.
* The last name defaults to the parents' (or foster parents'?) family name.
  The important point is that one CANNOT "invent" new, non-existing
  last(family) names, or at least, is extremely difficult to do so.
  Thus in theory, the set of possible family names is fixed.

I think the latter point is where "enforcing Japanese last names to
immigrating foreigners" comes in.

Even Japanese citizens cannot change their last names at will
(except for the obvious cases of adoption, marriage, and divorce).
It is also extremely difficult to change the first name --
one must have a good reason to do so.
"I simply don't like it" won't work.
The extent of usable characters (especially the Jinmei-kanji) has
been gradually increased, and converting to a once-unusable character
is one readily-accepted case of this (my wife actually went through it).

Another case is when the name would lead to humiliation (& prosecution :-).
An example that comes to mind is a boy named Tanaka-Kakuei, named after
a then prime-minister who was later ousted by the Lockheed scandal.
It's really not good practice to name a child after a celebrity,
because reputation may change, and the name would obscure individual
personality anyway.  I say this because it also applies to me --
I was named after a former Presidient of the Univ. of Tokyo and also
a naval designer-in-chief, who designed many of the Japanese warships
in the imperial navy.  In my orals exam for graduate school, I was
asked about nothing else but my name....

Of course, the above restrictions would become anachronistic if Japan
is to accept more immigrants from outside.


Some further trivia on name registration:
According to civil law, a married couple is free to choose the family
name of either the groom or the bride.  In practice, most of them
take the groom's, concurring with tradition.  Many of the cases
where the bride's name is taken is associated with the notion of
MUKO-YOUSHI (literally, groom-adoption); where the groom is supposed
to enter and succeed the bride's family line.

The registeration defines only the characters of the name,
and not its reading (yomi).  So the pronunciation of a name is
officially "undefined", and is totally conventional.
My hunch is that Japanese first names have greater diversity than
those of other cultures (e.g. where many of the names follow that
of Christianity).

-Yuzuru Hiraga
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan