Name in Japanese H Heidi

Heidi in Japanese

ハイジ
Katakana
ハイジ
Hiragana
はいじ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Haiji

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

How Heidi sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ha
I
Ji

Full reading: Haiji

Do more with Heidi in Japanese

Why Heidi 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, Heidi appears as ハイジ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ハイジ and immediately reads it by its sound, Haiji.

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 Heidi becomes ハイジ 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.