On having a legal "Japanese" name in Japan

Yes, my name really is now "Inoue".

Until very recently, I’ve had an unusual family name that very few people could spell or pronounce. I’m quite used to English speakers misspelling my name when I tell it to them, and mispronouncing my name when they see it written on a business card.

It’s very frustrating, but I understand why they make mistakes. Like some names written in kanji, the irregular and custom rules for names means that without being told how a name is spelled or pronounced, it is often impossible for even a native English speaker to accurately pronounce or write a name without being told in advance.

The reason there are no rules for all but the common names (like “Michael Smith”) is because America is a land of immigrants where many of the names came from non-English languages and sometimes even non-Latin alphabets.

When they immigrate to America, they must adapt their foreign name, changing letters and sounds that don’t exist in English to English forms. Often they shorten the name or make it more similar to popular English names. My ancestors are supposedly from central Europe. When they immigrated to England, the spelling and pronunciation were anglicized. And when my British grandparents emigrated to America, the pronunciation and spelling changed again slightly, making the spelling and pronunciation more “American modern.” I am unable to spell (which has letters that do not exist in English) or pronounce the original version of my family name because it has sounds that don’t exist in English. The American part of my family thinks my family in England pronounces our name unnaturally. And our British relatives think we are pronouncing our own name wrong because we became stupid Americans and forgot the correct pronunciation when we crossed the Atlantic ocean.

When you become Japanese, you’re allowed to choose any name you want for yourself for your new family register, so long as it follows the same rules one uses to name a Japanese baby: any mix of kana or kanji. No Latin letters are allowed.

I decided that it was already an American tradition for Americans to immigrate and modify or change their name to assimilate into a new culture, so I did not mind choosing the Japanese name “Inoue.”

So far, I have really enjoyed having this name in Japan. When I say the name over the phone or to a hotel or restaurant worker, nobody asks me how to write it, nobody asks me how to pronounce it, and nobody asks me to please repeat my name more slowly. Nobody forgets the name. A common name is good for business, too. When I get a business card with a long exotic name on it, I am afraid I will offend the person by mangling their name.

It’s odd and exciting to see my new family name everywhere in Japan. Even overseas Japanese. Hospitals. Restaurants. Small shops. Large corporations. Heroes. Famous historical figures. Politicians (Japanese and U.S.). Coworkers (more than one). Celebrities. Porn Stars. Criminals. My previous name was so rare that I had never met anybody with the same name besides my family. I had to use Google to see if there were other people with my name (there are about 250 in the entire world it seems, with 99% of them being in the U.K.)

There are drawbacks to a common name though. My old name was so uncommon that I could often use it on the internet as a user-id because often nobody has chosen the name before me. Getting the name “inoue” as a handle-name is impossible, though, even on English websites. Because of this, I still use my old family name as a convenient “unique identifier” for registering on websites.