Name in Japanese H Holly

Holly in Japanese

ホリー
Katakana
ホリー
Hiragana
ほりー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Horī

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

How Holly sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ho
リー

Full reading: Horī

Do more with Holly in Japanese

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

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 Holly becomes ホリー 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.