Name in Japanese N Nico

Nico in Japanese

ニコ
Katakana
ニコ
Hiragana
にこ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Niko

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

How Nico sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ni
Ko

Full reading: Niko

Do more with Nico in Japanese

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

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 Nico becomes ニコ 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.