Name in Japanese D Dylan

Dylan in Japanese

ディラン
Katakana
ディラン
Hiragana
でぃらん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Diran

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

How Dylan sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ディ Di
Ra
N

Full reading: Diran

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

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 Dylan becomes ディラン 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.