Name in Japanese B Barry

Barry in Japanese

バリー
Katakana
バリー
Hiragana
ばりー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Barī

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

How Barry sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ba
リー

Full reading: Barī

Do more with Barry in Japanese

Why Barry 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, Barry appears as バリー. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees バリー and immediately reads it by its sound, Barī.

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 Barry becomes バリー 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.