Name in Japanese K Kai

Kai in Japanese

カイ
Katakana
カイ
Hiragana
かい
Romaji (Hepburn)
Kai

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

How Kai sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ka
I

Full reading: Kai

Do more with Kai in Japanese

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

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 Kai becomes カイ 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.