Name in Japanese G Gary

Gary in Japanese

ゲイリー
Katakana
ゲイリー
Hiragana
げいりー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Geirī

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

How Gary sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ge
I
リー

Full reading: Geirī

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Why Gary 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, Gary appears as ゲイリー. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ゲイリー and immediately reads it by its sound, Geirī.

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 Gary becomes ゲイリー 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.