Name in Japanese H Hope

Hope in Japanese

ホープ
Katakana
ホープ
Hiragana
ほーぷ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Hōpu

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

How Hope sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ホー
Pu

Full reading: Hōpu

Do more with Hope in Japanese

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

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 Hope becomes ホープ 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.