Japan will start using the traditional order for Japanese names in English in official documents, with family names first, a switch from the Westernized custom the country adopted more than a century ago, government officials said Friday.
The idea has been floated for years and but some ministers in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ultra-conservative Cabinet recently started pushing for it again.
The Cabinet agreed Friday to begin making the change with government documents, though no timeline was given for its start.