Name in Japanese F Franklin

Franklin in Japanese

フランクリン
Katakana
フランクリン
Hiragana
ふらんくりん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Furankurin

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

How Franklin sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Fu
Ra
N
Ku
Ri
N

Full reading: Furankurin

Do more with Franklin in Japanese

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

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 Franklin becomes フランクリン 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.