Name in Japanese B Ben

Ben in Japanese

ベン
Katakana
ベン
Hiragana
べん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Ben

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

How Ben sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Be
N

Full reading: Ben

Do more with Ben in Japanese

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

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 Ben becomes ベン 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.