Until recently Kiyomi has been using her maiden name in Japan and Australia. We decided (for a number of reasons) that she should change her surname to mine. The procedure to do this in Japan is a bit different to Australia. Basically you’ll need four documents:

• Juminhyou (???) or Resident registration
• Kosekitohon (????) or Family registration
• Gaikokujin torokuzumi shoumeisho (?????????) or Foreign Registration Form (for non-Japanese spouses)
• Uji no henko kyoka moushitatesho (?????????) or Statutory Deceleration

Get/fill these forms out and send them (back) to your local family court (?????) along with ~1,400 yen postage/application stamp/shunyuinshi (????) — Amount subject to change. The family court will then check the submitted documents and if all is order they will send back a “confirmation” type form, this is to check that you still want to go ahead the name change. When you receive this, fill it out and attach 150 yen in shunyuinshi (????) “application stamps” (which are just normal stamps you can obtain from the post office) and post it back.

Once the family court gets back your confirmation and approves the name change they will issue a Kakuteishoumeisho (?????) and Shinpanshotouhon (?????) which you then take to city hall to finalise the name change. Of course those people who apply for a family name change within six months of marriage don’t have to do it this way. But for those out there who have, for one reason or another, not changed their (family) names within the first six months, this is what we had to do.

— David