Name in Japanese P Penny

Penny in Japanese

ペニー
Katakana
ペニー
Hiragana
ぺにー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Penī

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

How Penny sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Pe
ニー

Full reading: Penī

Do more with Penny in Japanese

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

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 Penny becomes ペニー 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.