I got a call from PayPay card a few days ago. They finally agreed that Douglas Lerner and Lerner Douglas Michael and Dagurasu Ra-na- and Dagurasu Rana and Raana Dagurasu Maikeru and all the katakana variations thereof are, in fact, me and they reactivated my PayPay card so I can use it in the mobile PayPay app.

The name confusion began when I first came to Japan over 40 years ago. Part of it was my fault. I knew nothing at all about Japan (I came to work on a computer graphics project for Expo ’85) and didn’t even know basic things like the fact that names in Japan are written in reverse order from the U.S. Here it’s family name first and given name last.

A Japanese American who worked with me at Livermore helped me come up with the Japanese katakana characters for my name. Katakana is the phonetic alphabet of syllables used in Japan for words and names of foreign origin.

• Douglas = Dagurasu = ダグラス (da gu ra su)
• Michael = Maikeru = マイケル (ma i ke ru)
• Lerner = Ra-na– = ラーナー (what looks like a long hyphen is the katakana version of elongating the vowel)

Another part of the problem was back in the ’80s they were less formal about having to show ID when signing up for things. You just told them your name. So, for example, when I first signed up for the national health system I put my name down as ダグラス　ラーナー (Dagurasu Ra-na-) and that’s how it’s been ever since. Same with my main bank account.

As ID checks got more formal, certain accounts and government IDs (MyNumber card, residence card, driver’s license, etc.) started following more of a Lerner Douglas Michael pattern. But some are just Lerner Douglas. And some official IDs have both Lerner Douglas Michael and ダグラス　ラーナー in katakana shown. On some credit cards there are other variations where my name got printed as RAANAA DAGURASU and on one it’s DAGURASU RANA. It’s all over the place.

In December I decided to do a “user verification” with PayPay (which was a dumb thing to bother which since I’ve been using the card for years) and that triggered the whole confusion with the card company. I had to send in photos of my various official IDs, and had multiple calls with them. Finally they agreed I am who I said I am and reactivated the card. I had been using my Rakuten card in the Rakuten app on my iPhone in the meanwhile, which isn’t bad. But I think PayPay is more widely accepted (I ran into at least one shop that took PayPay but not Rakuten). Also some things, like scanning bill bar codes to pay, work better with PayPay.

And don’t get me started on just the name “Doug” here. Or spaces between the names.

If you would like to know how to write your name in Japanese just let me know!