Name in Japanese J Joan

Joan in Japanese

ジョーン
Katakana
ジョーン
Hiragana
じょーん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Jōn

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

How Joan sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ジョー
N

Full reading: Jōn

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Why Joan 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, Joan appears as ジョーン. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ジョーン and immediately reads it by its sound, Jōn.

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 Joan becomes ジョーン 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.