Name in Japanese R Roxanne

Roxanne in Japanese

ロクサーヌ
Katakana
ロクサーヌ
Hiragana
ろくさーぬ
Romaji (Hepburn)
Rokusānu

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

How Roxanne sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Ro
Ku
サー
Nu

Full reading: Rokusānu

Do more with Roxanne in Japanese

Why Roxanne 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, Roxanne appears as ロクサーヌ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ロクサーヌ and immediately reads it by its sound, Rokusānu.

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 Roxanne becomes ロクサーヌ 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.