Name in Japanese J Joanna

Joanna in Japanese

ジョアンナ
Katakana
ジョアンナ
Hiragana
じょあんな
Romaji (Hepburn)
Joanna

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

How Joanna sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ジョ Jo
A
N
Na

Full reading: Joanna

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

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 Joanna becomes ジョアンナ 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.