Name in Japanese K Katherine

Katherine in Japanese

キャサリン
Katakana
キャサリン
Hiragana
きゃさりん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Kyasarin

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

How Katherine sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

キャ Kya
Sa
Ri
N

Full reading: Kyasarin

Do more with Katherine in Japanese

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

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 Katherine becomes キャサリン 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.