Name in Japanese J James

James in Japanese

ジェームズ
Katakana
ジェームズ
Hiragana
じぇーむず
Romaji (Hepburn)
Jēmuzu

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

How James sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ジェー
Mu
Zu

Full reading: Jēmuzu

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Why James 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, James appears as ジェームズ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ジェームズ and immediately reads it by its sound, Jēmuzu.

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 James becomes ジェームズ 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.