Name in Japanese G Gilbert

Gilbert in Japanese

ギルバート
Katakana
ギルバート
Hiragana
ぎるばーと
Romaji (Hepburn)
Girubāto

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

How Gilbert sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Gi
Ru
バー
To

Full reading: Girubāto

Do more with Gilbert in Japanese

Why Gilbert 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, Gilbert appears as ギルバート. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ギルバート and immediately reads it by its sound, Girubāto.

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 Gilbert becomes ギルバート 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.