Name in Japanese M Mae

Mae in Japanese

メイ
Katakana
メイ
Hiragana
めい
Romaji (Hepburn)
Mei

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

How Mae sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Me
I

Full reading: Mei

Do more with Mae in Japanese

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

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 Mae becomes メイ 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.