Wife's Japanese Passport Name

[Deep Blue]

The only long term solution is for Japan to exit the middle ages and recognise there are other people, cultures and naming conventions outside Japan and that shock horror gasp some of these people will move to Japan, or marry Japanese and create lovely babies. Until Japan moves into the 21st century foreigners are going to be stuck being fucked by the systems here - be it banks, marriage certificates, pensions, koseki, air tickets or whatever.

Sorry this doesn't help the OP but the amount of time effort and hassle wasted with this nonsense horrifies and saddens me.

[TunaSki]

It won’t work because the brackets in the passport are just Alias, they are not part of a person’s legal name. See here: https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/pss/page3e_001033.html

So like mentioned, your wife’s legal name is Suzuki, meaning she needs to travel as Suzuki on the ticket. Otherwise you’re always going to get discrepancies because the name in brackets mean nothing in a legal name sense.

If she wants to travel as Smith she needs to legally change her name in Japan to Smith. Or if she wants to travel as SuzukiSmith she needs to legally change her name to SuzukiSmith in Japan. Because until then, her legal name is Suzuki

As 6 months have likely passed since you got married, in order for her to change her legal name, she will have to go through the legal affairs bureau family courts.

[Deep Blue]

Anyway, the answer I was looking for was how to enter the surname on the airline ticket so that it passes the automated checkin. We've been told - by airline staff - to use SMITH as last name, SUZUKI as middle name (didn't work), or SUZUKISMITH (doesn't work). Possibly the correct answer is SUZUKI then, since the name in Japan is still primarly SUZUKI.

You hit on the is the correct answer with the bolded part. Your wife's surname is still Suzuki and is encoded as such in her passport machine readable data that is used during automated check in. Smith is not your wife's surname in Japan, it is still Suzuki.

[underhill]

You hit on the is the correct answer with the bolded part. Your wife's surname is still Suzuki and is encoded as such in her passport machine readable data that is used during automated check in. Smith is not your wife's surname in Japan, it is still Suzuki.

Thanks, you're right, I can see the SMITH part is not in the machine readable data. Using just SUZUKI, the issue now would be the various visas in the passport would now conflict with the name on the ticket. I don't know how much of an issue that would be as the passport still says SUZUKI (SMITH), as it has done for 10 years, so possibly not an issue. We shall see

[adamu]

It won’t work because the brackets in the passport are just Alias, they are not part of a person’s legal name. See here: https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/pss/page3e_001033.html

Good link. I was going to add it to the wiki page, but it was already there

https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Japanese_passports

[underhill]

We gave it a go, MAI SUZUKI on the passport worked perfectly

The visa MAI SUZUKI (First Names) SMITH (Last Name) on the Visa worked perfectly too.

[captainspoke]

Wife and I married here, Osaka city hall and then walked that to the US consulate there to co-register it with them.

She didn't change her name, didn't want to, and was pleased with the fact that even then, 1988, because I was a foreigner she didn't have to change her name and could keep her own. She was already teaching (uni) and had a couple publications so no name change meant she never had to explain why she had pubs under different names. So never any name issues for us on passports/tickets and so on.

For our kids, because of this, at birth they got her name, and I forget how fast/slow/urgently we did it, but we later went to the family court and had their family names changed to mine (and each got a new 戸籍謄本 of their own then). A little paperwork/bureaucracy for that, but to my knowledge they later (and even now) have never had any name issues for passports or tickets (or limits on the number of characters on various cards/bank accts).

Both are married now. One did switch her name to his (completely, no doubling/hyphenation), the other kept their 'maiden' name.

*

Also, with relatively simple names, one issue that also didn't affect us was fitting their names on the sticker sets used in primary school, for every pencil and every other bit of kit.

[Deep Blue]

We gave it a go, MAI SUZUKI on the passport worked perfectly

The visa MAI SUZUKI (First Names) SMITH (Last Name) on the Visa worked perfectly too.

Good to hear. I'm just tickled pink a thread about travelling with different names has a Mr Underhill contributing to it.