I've been thinking about this topic for a while and I can't seem to find a solid answer.

My main question is: if a foreigner were to marry a Japanese native and become a parent in Japan (prior to naturalization), what would be his options with regards to the name on the family register? If the foreigner has naturalized I imagine they would have already adopted a kanji name so I ignore this possibility.

In the case that the person in question adopts the Japanese surname of their partner and the family register is registered under that name, the children will receive the Japanese surname and everything works out fine.

In the case that the couple wants to use the (non-naturalized) foreign national's surname, things seem to get a bit unclear. For the case of someone coming from a country that registers Chinese character names, the kanji used might not be in the set of Jinmeiyo kanji, which would present a problem. For anyone else, their name would be written in roman letters on their residence card. It seems like there isn't even a space for a kanji/katakana alias in the current system of cards, so I can't imagine what the rules would be for transliteration/kanjification when making a family register.

Finally there's the case where the couple wants to make the register with a completely new name, which I have no idea is possible or not.

Does anyone know?

EDIT: Hmm, seems like most of my questions are (partially) answered by http://allabout.co.jp/gm/gc/221546/2/.

-People with official Chinese character names can register them (with alterations if not jinmeiyou compliant), otherwise registration must be in katakana
-Doesn't seem to suggest any possibility of kanjifying the foreigner's surname or creating a new one entirely, so I can only assume this is an impossibility...
-Creating double-barreled surnames is possible

Quite peculiarly it seems that ethnically Japanese people with only western (etc.) citizenship seem to be required to register their name in katakana...

Quote:外国姓だと子どもが将来いじめられるかもしれないと日本姓を残す人もいますし、家族の姓はやっぱり１つがいいと夫の外国姓に変更する方もいます。
子どもの将来、家族の将来を考えて、それぞれの状況に合わせて選択されるとよいでしょう。

Certainly, an important thing to think about... what are everyone's thoughts on the topic of balancing personal preference of surname with ensuring a normal life for one's offpring by going with the Japanese family name?

I'm not sure if you can or not, but when my wife and I married, she took my family name and thus her family registry is listed with the family name in katakana, the same with our children, katakana family names, kanji first names. My name, when it shows up is all katakana, no roman characters and we've had all sorts of fun with my middle name.

My wife and I decided early on to give our sons Japanese first names with kanji and keep my family name, they have American middle names so if they do decide to head to the States they can use those in lieu of their Japanese names as their family registries do not record them, but US government documents do.

That seems like the best idea to me too.