Your name in Japanese
Your name in Japanese. After taking a Japanese course for a while, you will wonder what is your name in Japanese? Sometimes you need to do paperwork related to Japan or Japanese such as: documents to go study abroad, job application to apply at a Japanese company, or to work in Japan… ? in such caese, you will need to learn to write your name in Japanese. In this article, LearnJapanesedaily will show you how to write your name in Japanese.
Contents
Written in Katakana
To Japanese, their names are often written in Kanji, sometimes hard to read. We might have to ask Japanese people or do a research online (in many cases, even Japanese people also have to ask each other since there is a variety of readings).
Recently, some Japanese people have started using foreign names, meaning they write their Japanese names in Katakana, hence we see Katakana appears in some Japanese names. As you can see, foreigners’ names in Japanese will be written in Katakana.
Spelled in Japanese
In some countries (China, Korea, Vietnam…), names can be figured out in Kanji, but in general, foreigners’ names will be written in Katakana (even Chinese people can write Kanji, they still have to write the pronunciation since Japanese people can’t pronounce the names right if they only look into the Kanji).
That means, our names have to be phonetic transcriptions, not meanings, choose the closest sound with your name in Japanese.
For example: The word Tan sounds most closely with タン（tan).
Sounds which don’t exist in Japanese
There is a limited number of sounds in Japanese so many different names would use the same exact Japanese spelling. To sounds that don’t exist in Japanese, we can combine several sounds in Japanese to create the sound.
For example: “too’: トゥ (we add a little “u” right behind ト), or “tea”: ティ (typing: “thi”). With the word “V”, we use the word ヴ (typing: “vu”). ヴァン: to type (vann); ヴィ: typing (vi).
Use only one official name
At first you write your name in Japanese for Japanese people to be able to say your name, but once you have put it in your paperwork, keep it that way. When others say your name, you can fix their pronunciation and accent so they can pronounce your name the most closely.
You shouldn’t change your spelling once you have put it into an important document because it will affect your afterward documents.
The simpler, the better
There is nothing that is truly right or wrong when you spell your name in Japanese, only which one is closer to the original. You can always choose your own pronunciation, but remember to keep it simple.
For example: Your name in Vietnamese is Quốc, your closest phonetic transcription is コック, but you should choose コク to remember more easily and they are not that different. Moreover, none of them sounds exactly like your name in your mother tongue, so there is no use to be picky.
Above are some advice Learn Japanese daily would like to share with readers about how to write your name in Japanese.
Good luck choosing the best name for yourself!
