Passport Names

Apologies if this topic is old, but for me it's recent and real.

I am from Australia and have been granted citizenship; I attend my ceremony on Wednesday, March 30th. My wife is Japanese and has decided not to take up British citizenship, as ADULT Japanese may not hold another citizenship, however children can up to the age of 18.

My daughter (4yo) currently has a Japanese passport, she was born in the UK, but at the time of her birth I was on a working visa, and my wife on a spouse visa. We did not have IDR at that time, so my daughter was not born as a UK citizen; however she does have a UK birth certificate with her full, first middle LAST.

My wife has not taken my last name, Smith, she has kept her Japanese name, YY. In Japan she has a 'family-book' of which she is the head, and the surname is YY. Her passport is in the name of K YY, all passports in that family now have the last name YY.

My daughter's Japanese passport has the name as first middle last name where the last name is middle name (last name) and there is no middle name. My daughter has also been granted British Citizenship; she received her certificate at the same time as me, and in her birth name first middle LAST.

However we have been informed by the Home Office that she will not be eligible for a British Passport unless she changes the name in her Japanese passport.

I have a couple of question;
1. should I apply for a British Passport and ask that her different name just be noted on the observations page?
2. should I return her Biometric card?
3. can she travel now; we have none planned though in the short term, but would like to travel later this year.
4. if I really can't her a British passport, should I just get a certificate of entitlement?

Your advise is much appreciated,
Blister

Please don't post full names and personal identifiable information on a public forum.

HMPO will only issue a passport if the foreign passport matches the name.

CR001 wrote:Please don't post full names and personal identifiable information on a public forum.

HMPO will only issue a passport if the foreign passport matches the name.

To be clear, names have been changed.

Would my daugher be eligible for a certificate of entitlement?

You would have done better to write complete generic names such as Jane Doe.

The way you put the names, could indicate to a spammer/scammer (who do visit this site) that it is a real person.

Apologies, I should have made it clear. The key point is that her certificate was issued in a different name to that of her passport. It seems that this is a problem for HMPO, despite reading other posts on this forum which suggest this situation in not unique.

My questions still stand, how will she be able to travel back in to the UK? Would a certificate of eligibility work?

One solution should be to use the name that appears on her Japanese passport. I'm not quite sure from your post what that is, so I don't know how unacceptable that is.

On her birth certificate and certificate of naturalisation her name appears as;
Jane Watanabe DOE - where Watanabe is the middle name, and DOE is the surname (these are fictitious names.)

In her Japanese passport her names appears as;
Jane WATANABE(DOE) - where WATANABE(DOE) is the surname, and there is no middle name.

But perhaps Richard W is right; I attempt to get 2 new passports in the name of Jane WATANABE. I guess, for this to be a valid solution, I'd need to change her name by deed-poll to Jane WATANABE and apply for a new Japanese passport under that name first, and then apply for the British passport. Seems like quite a length to go to for a passport.

I would suggest that "Jane WATANABE-DOE" or "Jane WATANABE DOE" would be an eminently sensible compromise. I'm surprised Japanese allows parentheses in surnames. Remember that you may ultimately hit the get-out clause - you can't change her Japanese name, and then the Passport Office will record the Japanese name in the observations.

She may find getting married rather stressful - it's possible dual national ladies may find it impossible to change their surnames! I gather that Japanese dual nationals from birth are not being compelled to give up one of the nationalities. Formally, the Japanese have to be explicitly threatened first before they are stripped of Japanese nationality, and a Thai-Japanese dual national told me that it isn't happening.

Richard W - when you say the ultimate get out clause, do you have an example or precedent I could cite. I only ask because I have been told by the passport office that they will not issue her a passport currently, and would not consider noting the different name on the observation page. This would most certainly be my preferred solution, but at the moment I don't believe it to be possible.

See Antsmall's victory post. Successes stated being reported on p11 of that thread.

Richard W wrote:See Antsmall's victory post. Successes stated being reported on p11 of that thread.

Thanks! This has definitely had my day! Very much appreciated.

In case you're still reading this, the passport name policy has been clarified and improved now, as explained in more detail here: http://www.immigrationboards.com/britis ... l#p1401208

The new policy is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... e-guidance

I hope this helps. Good luck!