Name in Japanese L Lana

Lana in Japanese

ラナ
Katakana
ラナ
Hiragana
らな
Romaji (Hepburn)
Rana

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

How Lana sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ra
Na

Full reading: Rana

Do more with Lana in Japanese

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

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 Lana becomes ラナ 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.