Name in Japanese L Laurel

Laurel in Japanese

ローレル
Katakana
ローレル
Hiragana
ろーれる
Romaji (Hepburn)
Rōreru

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

How Laurel sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ロー
Re
Ru

Full reading: Rōreru

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

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 Laurel becomes ローレル 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.