Name in Japanese B Bobby

Bobby in Japanese

ボビー
Katakana
ボビー
Hiragana
ぼびー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Bobī

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

How Bobby sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Bo
ビー

Full reading: Bobī

Do more with Bobby in Japanese

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

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 Bobby becomes ボビー 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.