No More Kanji or Kana Aliases for Non-Japanese

Old ARC card vs the New ARC card

One of the more popular posts on this site has been the one titled:

FAQ: Can I have an official Japanese name even if I don't naturalize?

In that post, we talked about how non-Japanese can get a "Japanese name" (in 漢字 {kanji} (Japanese sinograms) or 仮名 {kana} (Japanese syllabet) registered and imprinted underneath your "passport name" on the official identification card for non-Japanese residents: the 外国人登録証明書 {gaikokujin tōroku shōmeisho} (Alien Registration Card; "ARC"). This field exists for many reasons: originally for non-Japanese who appeared Asian — such as 特別永住者 {tokubetsu eijūsha} (Special Permanent Residents) Koreans and Chinese etc. — who wished to use a Japanese name for various reasons (such as, but not limited to, reducing the chances of being discriminated against), it is now used by some non-Asian residents to provide an definitive transliteration / nickname etc in カタカナ {katakana} for doing day-to-day life and business in Japan.

Transliteration from any foreign language into another foreign language is often ambiguous due to the presence or lack of sounds, homonyms, or non-auditory details in the spelling of one's name. Thus, there is often no absolutely correct way to transliterate a name, and once it's transliterated, there's no guarantee that you can reverse it back to the original writing system. 

This is true not just for transliterating into Japanese but for transliterating to English; foreigners that come from Arabic writing systems often lose the ability to unambiguously reverse their Anglicized name back to the original writing system.

There are also some people that do choose a Japanese style name or an 当て字 {ateji} (Japanese sinograms that roughly correspond to either the pronunciation or meaning of the non-Japanese name) name for their ARC alias that may have nothing in common with a name that appears Japanese.

However, the 法務省 {hōmushō} (Japan Ministry of Justice) will do away with these older, local municipality issued cards for a nationally issued card called the 在留カード {zairyū kādo} (new Alien Residence Card).

Notice how the English translation of 在留カード {zairyū kādo} (new Alien Residence Card) gives it the exact same acronym ("ARC") as the old English translation (Alien Registration Card), even though the legal word "Alien" (外国人 {gaikokujin}) is not in the new official Japanese name.

All of the changes that will occur with this card are out-of-scope for this web site, but we will address one issue in order to correct an older post:

The new cards do away with the 通称 {tsūshō} (alias) field that was present in the older cards.

All of the fields on the old ARC are numbered; the Alias field is field #17. The number is not present on the front of the card, but if you add an alias to a card that has already been issued, the reverse-side 記載欄 {kisairan} (notation area) will note that field #17 has be changed/added and the reverse side of your card will have the alias until a card renewal or replacement occurs (if which case the alias will be listed on the front).

Note that this does not mean that names will not be rendered in sinograms on the new ARC cards; if you are a non-Japanese that comes from a locale that officially registers sinogram names (for example, the P.R.C. & Singapore), your "name" field will have the same 漢字 {kanji. If ones official sinogram name cannot be rendered in the computer system reflecting the ARC card due to character set limitations, then characters that are as close as possible to the unified Han characters will be used instead..

Japanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans will have their names written in Latin letters, unless they are dual nationals and can prove the official Han character names are registered with a government they are a citizen of. Immigration officials at ports of entry may enter Chinese names in passport or transliterated form into the country entry/exit logs, etc., if Japanese computer input technology makes it impossible, time consuming, or difficult to enter a foreign 漢字 {kanji} name on the old or new ARCs.

I'm not sure about the motivation to do away with the alias field in the new ARCs. Its original purpose was for accommodating Special Permanent Residents who were assimilated into society to the point that they did not use and/or want to use their legal non-Japanese names in day-to-day life in Japan. However, special permanent residents have been declining in numbers year after year, with regular permanent residents now outnumbering them. Also, governments generally dislike aliases because they can be used for fraud; if you register an account in Japan with your alias, for example, it can be difficult to impossible to identify you with other systems outside of Japan. Finally, the need to have a Japanese name for day-to-day life is now debatable with modern computers; compared to a few decades ago, more and more computer systems in Japan (especially banks) can handle non-Japanese long Latin names in their computer systems. Some parts of government have never allowed aliases. For example, any foreign names on 戸籍 {koseki} (family register) must be transliterated as close as possible to the passport form, even though foreign scripts (including Latin/Roman letters) are not allowed.