Name in Japanese K Kurt

Kurt in Japanese

カート
Katakana
カート
Hiragana
かーと
Romaji (Hepburn)
Kāto

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

How Kurt sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

カー
To

Full reading: Kāto

Do more with Kurt in Japanese

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

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 Kurt becomes カート 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.