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VISA Q and A on FM COCOLO 76.5 MHz Changing The Children's Surname On Aired Data: Nov. 07, 2000 |
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Summary of the Aired Program |
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Client : 35-year old Asian who has been in Japan for about 10 years. His wife is a Japanese citizen, and has a 4-year old son who follows his Japanese wife’s family name and is included in the family registration of his wife. Case : The client would like to change his son’s family name, so that the son can follow the client’s family name. Let’s start from explaining the procedures for a Japanese national getting married to a foreigner. Should the Japanese national choose to change their family name to the foreign national spouse’s family name, they are eligible to do so, as long as they hand in the necessary documents to the Municipal Office within 6 months of their marriage. However in this case, given the information that the child was registered in the Japanese spouse’s family register, this couple chose not to follow the same family name at the time of their marriage. For the child in this case, since the mother is a Japanese national, actually it does not matter whether the parents are legally married or not. This is according to the Japanese Law which states that the child of a mother who is a Japanese citizen is automatically granted the Japanese citizenship. As the child obtains Japanese citizenship, the child is registered under the mother’s family register, and follows the family name of the mother also. Moving let’s move on to answering the question, “What does our client have to do to change his son’s family name to follow the foreigner’s family name?”. As we have mentioned before, the Family Registration Law states that a parent who intends to change his/her child’s surname can apply for the “Permission to alter the Surname,” at a Family Court having jurisdiction where the applicant resides (Article 107 section 4). Once the application is accepted, submit the form called “Registration to change the surname of a child to his/her foreign national parent’s surname” to the municipal office at the child’s legal domicile, along with the copy of the approval certificate from the Family Court. After these procedures, the child’s new family name will be legally acknowledged and the child’s name will be removed from the previous family register of the Japanese national parent and a new family register will be created for the child bearing the new family name (Family Registration Law; Article 20 section 2, paragraph 2). If the child is under 15 years old, the legal guardian of the child, who can be the mother or the father, must apply as the representative of the child. As the son of our listener is still 4 years old, either of the parents can represent the child, once the application for the change of surname is accepted. Documents Required: The previous family register of the Japanese parent reflecting the inclusion of the child, and any documents from the home country of the parent of foreign national corresponding to Japan’s family register. By the way, it is said that only Japan, Korea and Taiwan have a family register system. For those countries which do not have the family register system, the birth certificate can be considered equivalent to the Japanese family register. |
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