Name in Japanese D Dorothy

Dorothy in Japanese

ドロシー
Katakana
ドロシー
Hiragana
どろしー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Doroshī

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

How Dorothy sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Do
Ro
シー Shī

Full reading: Doroshī

Do more with Dorothy in Japanese

Why Dorothy 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, Dorothy appears as ドロシー. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ドロシー and immediately reads it by its sound, Doroshī.

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 Dorothy becomes ドロシー 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.