Name in Japanese F Frank

Frank in Japanese

フランク
Katakana
フランク
Hiragana
ふらんく
Romaji (Hepburn)
Furanku

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

How Frank sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Fu
Ra
N
Ku

Full reading: Furanku

Do more with Frank in Japanese

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

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 Frank becomes フランク 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.