Name in Japanese B Bruce

Bruce in Japanese

ブルース
Katakana
ブルース
Hiragana
ぶるーす
Romaji (Hepburn)
Burūsu

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

How Bruce sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Bu
ルー
Su

Full reading: Burūsu

Do more with Bruce in Japanese

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

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 Bruce becomes ブルース 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.