Name in Japanese S Selena

Selena in Japanese

セレナ
Katakana
セレナ
Hiragana
せれな
Romaji (Hepburn)
Serena

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

How Selena sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Se
Re
Na

Full reading: Serena

Do more with Selena in Japanese

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

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 Selena becomes セレナ 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.