Name in Japanese L Luigi

Luigi in Japanese

ルイジ
Katakana
ルイジ
Hiragana
るいじ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Ruiji

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

How Luigi sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ru
I
Ji

Full reading: Ruiji

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

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 Luigi becomes ルイジ 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.