Name in Japanese B Barbara

Barbara in Japanese

バーバラ
Katakana
バーバラ
Hiragana
ばーばら
Romaji (Hepburn)
Bābara

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

How Barbara sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

バー
Ba
Ra

Full reading: Bābara

Do more with Barbara in Japanese

Why Barbara 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, Barbara appears as バーバラ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees バーバラ and immediately reads it by its sound, Bābara.

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 Barbara becomes バーバラ 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.