Name in Japanese J John

John in Japanese

ジョン
Katakana
ジョン
Hiragana
じょん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Jon

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

How John sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ジョ Jo
N

Full reading: Jon

Do more with John in Japanese

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

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 John becomes ジョン 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.