Name in Japanese H Hugh

Hugh in Japanese

ヒュー
Katakana
ヒュー
Hiragana
ひゅー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Hyū

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

How Hugh sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ヒュー Hyū

Full reading: Hyū

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

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 Hugh becomes ヒュー 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.