Overview
- Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s LDP pledges to legalize use of maiden names as aliases, a stance backed by Japan Innovation Party, while Sanseitō and Japan Conservative Party oppose change.
- The Constitutional Democratic Party–Komeito centrist reform bloc campaigns for optional separate surnames, joined by DPFP, the Japanese Communist Party, Reiwa Shinsengumi, and the Social Democratic Party.
- Women physicians and researchers describe delayed marriages and lost credit for publications, arguing an alias-only measure would not remove the underlying harms of enforced name changes.
- Japan is the only country that legally requires one family name for spouses, and the UN CEDAW committee has repeatedly urged adoption of an optional separate-surname system.
- A 2025 civil code bill to allow optional separate surnames lapsed with the 2026 snap dissolution, leaving the issue unsettled as voters choose, and 2024 data show about 94% of name changes are borne by women, prompting workarounds such as common-law marriages and repeat paper divorces.