"Japanese LOVE paperwork, apparently" Top 5 Page for this destination Tokyo Local Custom Tip by Bunsch

One day, we had to visit the Minato Ward office to deal with the business of name changes. Japanese bureaucracy is truly mind-boggling. My daughter-in-law had literally dozens of sheets of paper, applications, proofs of this or that, all bearing a variety of colorful seals on them...and it wasn't enough. She had to fill out several more sheets while we were at the Ward office, which is rather like an adjunct City Hall, except it had a beautiful, Zen-like courtyard. A uniformed guide greeted us as we arrived and directed us to the appropriate window.

As an American citizen, Mishuku was free to retain her own name when she married. As a Japanese national, this is impossible; she was supposed to have registered her marriage and assumed her husband's name within six months, even though at that point she was still living in the United States. It turned out to be not so simple to remedy things after the fact. When Emi was born, therefore, she legally had to take her mother's maiden name. Mishu spent four hours at the Ward office trying to straighten things out, but had been sent off to accumulate more documents, etc. On our return visit, we hoped everything would be in order -- which it was, eventually. Mishuku and Emi are now officially Southgates, and even have national health cards to prove it. Once the formal name change documents have been prepared by the Ward, they will be sent to the apartment and at that point everyone can go to the United States Embassy to apply for Emi's official American documents.