Name in Japanese D Diego

Diego in Japanese

ディエゴ
Katakana
ディエゴ
Hiragana
でぃえご
Romaji (Hepburn)
Diego

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

How Diego sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ディ Di
E
Go

Full reading: Diego

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

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 Diego becomes ディエゴ 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.