Name in Japanese O Olive

Olive in Japanese

オリーブ
Katakana
オリーブ
Hiragana
おりーぶ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Orību

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

How Olive sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

O
リー
Bu

Full reading: Orību

Do more with Olive in Japanese

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

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 Olive becomes オリーブ 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.