I'm adding my in-laws and wondering how to spell my own name!
At the time of their immigration in 1935, our name Tobo was written 當房. So that's how I entered my husband's paternal grandparents (they both had the same surname). In the orthographic reforms following WWII, the first character was simplified, so in modern Japan our name is 当房. If you've ever enjoyed a bento box, the first character makes the "to" part of that word.
Technically both vowels are long in Japan, so a more accurate romanization is Tōbō or Toubou (depending on whether you're in the Hepburn or Kunrei-shiki camp). We don't pronounce or spell it that way in Colorado (we just rhyme with "hobo"), so I probably won't use either of those renderings.
Now, how will users ever find us? I guess I'll use 當房 for Last Name at Birth for those born in Japan before 1946 with Tobo as the current name for the Americans and 当房 as the current last name of any Japanese cousins. And 当房 as an Other Name for the old folks and as the Last Name at Birth for any Japanese folks born after 1946 (unless I'm told they used the old form). Maybe I should include 当房 as an Other Name for us Americans so the Japanese users can find us.
Who am I this time?
For places, I'd like to know the Japanese style. I use the English name in the biography since I'm writing in English, but are we really ready to accept "write the place names as known by the ancestor" in East Asia?
.On Wikipedia the Japanese address system article states that addresses start from the largest unit and go to the smallest. I know that Fujiye Tobo was born in Kaseda City, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. I think I should include Japan for starters, so I guess I would write 日本国鹿児島県加世田市 unless maybe I don't need the "koku" part of Nihon-koku. Any thoughts?