Name in Japanese A Athena

Athena in Japanese

アテナ
Katakana
アテナ
Hiragana
あてな
Romaji (Hepburn)
Atena

This is the established spelling used for Athena in Japanese dictionaries, books and media.

How Athena sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

A
Te
Na

Full reading: Atena

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Why Athena is written in katakana

In Japanese, foreign names are written in katakana — the angular script reserved for words borrowed from other languages. So on a form, a name tag, a delivery slip or a news article in Japan, Athena appears as アテナ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees アテナ and immediately reads it by its sound, Atena.

Katakana is a syllabary, so English sounds are fitted to the nearest Japanese syllables and every consonant (except ん) is followed by a vowel. That is why Athena becomes アテナ rather than a letter-for-letter copy. More than one katakana spelling can be reasonable for the same name, which is why we flag whether a spelling is a long-established one or a natural default.