Photo/Illutration Members of a committee under the Justice Ministry's Legislative Council meet Feb. 2 to discuss readings of first names. (Kosuke Tauchi)

Parents will not be able to give any reading they want to the kanji characters they use in naming children under legislation the government plans to enact in fiscal 2024.

For example, any reading totally unrelated to the kanji would be forbidden, such as using the characters for “Taro,” but insisting it be read as “Michael.”

A committee of the Justice Ministry’s Legislative Council on Feb. 2 compiled recommendations for revising the Family Register Law that said only readings of kanji that are generally recognized by the public will be allowed.

The law will be revised to require that readings of names be included in the family register. While parents who submit notifications of a child’s birth to the local government office can now write in the reading, that option is not currently included in the official family register.

The government is moving toward including name readings in the family register to promote digitalization of administrative procedures and to allow for the use of My Number Card outside of Japan from 2024 through romanization of the carrier’s name.

A bill to revise the Family Register Law along the lines of the latest recommendation will be submitted to the current ordinary Diet session.

The regulation for enforcing the Family Register Law already determines which kanji can be used in names. Currently, local government officials who receive birth notifications check that the kanji name submitted is allowed.

In a similar manner, once the bill is passed, those officials would also assess whether the proposed reading is appropriate. If a reading is rejected, the parents would have the option of petitioning a family court to have the decision overturned.

The Legislative Council committee did not include specific standards for deciding what readings would be allowed.

Because there are at least two possible readings for every kanji character, it is possible for two-character first names to have a wide range of possible readings.

And some Japanese have let their imaginations run wild in picking a reading. For example, one kanji that can be read either as “umi” or “kai” to mean ocean or sea has instead been read by some parents as “marin,” likely due to similarities to “marine” in English.

That begs the question of whether the kanji normally read as “sora” or “ku” can be read as “sky” in Japanese to match the English definition.

But trends in first names can change quickly.

The members of the committee looking into readings of first names were surprised to find there were already about 200 people who applied for passports citing Marin as their first name.

Based on an estimate that about 20 percent of Japanese hold passports, that would suggest there are 1,000 or so individuals with the Marin name.

If the bill passes the Diet, the government intends to enact the change from fiscal 2024. Before doing so, the Justice Ministry is expected to send out examples to local government offices of name readings that might cause confusion and for that reason should not be allowed. One example would be submitting a reading that is the reverse of what the kanji actually means.

In addition to newborns, all other Japanese who already have a family register will have to present notifications to local government offices of the reading for their names within one year of the enactment of the revised law.

In such cases, readings that may not be generally recognized would still be allowed on grounds that it was the one the individual has been using until now.

Related News