Name in Japanese S Salma

Salma in Japanese

サルマ
Katakana
サルマ
Hiragana
さるま
Romaji (Hepburn)
Saruma

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

How Salma sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Sa
Ru
Ma

Full reading: Saruma

Do more with Salma in Japanese

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

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 Salma becomes サルマ 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.