Name in Japanese C Carla

Carla in Japanese

カーラ
Katakana
カーラ
Hiragana
かーら
Romaji (Hepburn)
Kāra

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

How Carla sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

カー
Ra

Full reading: Kāra

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

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 Carla becomes カーラ 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.