Name in Japanese S Savannah

Savannah in Japanese

サバンナ
Katakana
サバンナ
Hiragana
さばんな
Romaji (Hepburn)
Sabanna

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

How Savannah sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Sa
Ba
N
Na

Full reading: Sabanna

Do more with Savannah in Japanese

Why Savannah 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, Savannah appears as サバンナ. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees サバンナ and immediately reads it by its sound, Sabanna.

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 Savannah becomes サバンナ 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.