Name in Japanese P Pearl

Pearl in Japanese

パール
Katakana
パール
Hiragana
ぱーる
Romaji (Hepburn)
Pāru

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

How Pearl sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

パー
Ru

Full reading: Pāru

Do more with Pearl in Japanese

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

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 Pearl becomes パール 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.