Name in Japanese K Kimberly

Kimberly in Japanese

キンバリー
Katakana
キンバリー
Hiragana
きんばりー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Kinbarī

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

How Kimberly sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ki
N
Ba
リー

Full reading: Kinbarī

Do more with Kimberly in Japanese

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

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 Kimberly becomes キンバリー 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.