Hi, I noticed this week that the papers were talking about legalising the practice of married couples using separate family names.

I was quite shocked because we are already using different names!. We registered under the national health system as such and our Koseki Touhon says the same. No-one questioned it. Is this just becasue it is "too hard" dealing with us aliens?.

Any thoughts/experiences on this?.

My husband and I both have different surnames. To add insult to injury, our newborn daughter has a hyphenated surname (mine - hubbys). We had no problems at all when it came time to register our daughter's birth (altho' we did receive many looks of confusion which provided the day's entertainment).

I was married in Japan and kept my maiden name. I'm far too lazy to swedge my way through the bureacratic quagmire to have a few lousy letters changed. This week I found out that I have to go to my ward office and fill out a declaration of WHY my name differs from the hubster's. We had no problem when registering our son's birth either, we're only running into this hassle now that I'm switching onto his employee national health insurance. PITA!

Karen