Name in Japanese I Iris

Iris in Japanese

アイリス
Katakana
アイリス
Hiragana
あいりす
Romaji (Hepburn)
Airisu

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

How Iris sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

A
I
Ri
Su

Full reading: Airisu

Do more with Iris in Japanese

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

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 Iris becomes アイリス 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.