Name in Japanese B Bertha

Bertha in Japanese

バーサ
Katakana
バーサ
Hiragana
ばーさ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Bāsa

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

How Bertha sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

バー
Sa

Full reading: Bāsa

Do more with Bertha in Japanese

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

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 Bertha becomes バーサ 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.