Tokyo High Court rejects appeal over law forcing Japanese couples to use same surname after marriage
The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday rejected a damages suit filed by four people arguing that a national law forcing couples to use the same surname after marriage is unconstitutional. Yoshihisa Aono, the 48-year-old president of software development firm Cybozu Inc., and three others had ...
Japan to improve how its passports show birth names of married citizens
The Foreign Ministry will change the way it records birth names in passports for those who adopt the surname of their spouse, in order to display both names more clearly, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Wednesday. "The current method of using parentheses makes it hard ...
Heckling at Diet meeting may spur dual surname debate in Japan's LDP
The party’s Fumio Kishida has said that “we should hold discussions as needed” on whether to allow married couples to continue using their respective surnames.
Shinjiro Koizumi backs different surnames for Japanese couples
In a major break with Japanese tradition, Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi expresses support for enabling married couples to use different family names.
The National Police Agency said Thursday it will allow people to print their maiden name alongside their married name on driver's licenses starting Sunday. The move is in line with a similar measure taken for the My Number social security and tax identification card. People can ...
Tokyo court rejects damages suit over law forcing married couples to share a surname
The Tokyo District Court on Thursday rejected a damages suit filed by three couples who argued that the country's law forcing married couples to use the same surname is unconstitutional. The Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court upheld the constitutionality of the relevant provisions ...
Government to put Japanese family names first when using Roman alphabet from Jan. 1
The government will write family names first when using the Roman alphabet for Japanese names on official documents from Jan. 1, the education minister said Friday. Respective ministries and agencies will notify related industries in the private sector of the government's decision, which breaks from ...
LDP's Shinjiro Koizumi says he would use dual surname system
Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Shinjiro Koizumi, who made headlines recently by announcing his marriage with television anchor Christel Takigawa, stressed on Monday his eagerness to work for the introduction in the country of a dual surname system for married couples. If there were an established ...
It's official: Government to put Japanese family names first when using Roman alphabet
In a break from the long tradition of adopting the Western name order in Roman script, the government Friday decided to put surnames first when writing Japanese names in official documents. "In a globalized world, it has become increasingly important to be aware of the ...
Passports, maiden names, brackets: Japan Foreign Minister Taro Kono wades into a minefield
When Foreign Minister Taro Kono wrote on Twitter that he would order his ministry to look into the contentious issue of maiden names on passports in response to a tweet in early June, he may not have been aware of the minefield he was ...
Women in male-dominated Japan fight for their identity — starting with their names
The nation's women are going through an identity crisis. They're fighting to overturn a law that bars married couples from having different last names, which creates complications for women who have established careers and reputations. About 600,000 Japanese couples wed every year and the law says ...
Moves are afoot to push media to switch Japanese name order in English, but will it work?
Some laugh it off as a First World problem. But others say the topic touches upon issues of identity, sovereignty and press freedom. Foreign Minister Taro Kono recently stirred controversy by saying he wants to change the way Japanese names have long been rendered in ...
