Name in Japanese J Joy

Joy in Japanese

ジョイ
Katakana
ジョイ
Hiragana
じょい
Romaji (Hepburn)
Joi

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

How Joy sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ジョ Jo
I

Full reading: Joi

Do more with Joy in Japanese

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

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 Joy becomes ジョイ 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.