Name in Japanese P Pauline

Pauline in Japanese

ポーリーン
Katakana
ポーリーン
Hiragana
ぽーりーん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Pōrīn

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

How Pauline sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ポー
リー
N

Full reading: Pōrīn

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Why Pauline 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, Pauline appears as ポーリーン. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ポーリーン and immediately reads it by its sound, Pōrīn.

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 Pauline becomes ポーリーン 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.