Name in Japanese I Irene

Irene in Japanese

アイリーン
Katakana
アイリーン
Hiragana
あいりーん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Airīn

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

How Irene sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

A
I
リー
N

Full reading: Airīn

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

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 Irene becomes アイリーン 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.