2003 JAPAN LAW: NAME REGISTRATION
Keywords: Family Law, Name Registration
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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The Ministry of Justice is reportedly planning to increase the number of Japanese language characters that parents can use in registering the name of their children. At present they are permitted to use any of the 1,945 Toyo Kanji common in every day use as well as another 285 designated for use in names. It plans to increase the number of  eligible characters by about 1000. In December, 2003 for the first time the Supreme Court of Japan ordered local authorities to accept for registration the name of a child using characters not on that approved list. The Court noted that the character the parents were attempting to use was a widely used character.