Name in Japanese S Shaun

Shaun in Japanese

ショーン
Katakana
ショーン
Hiragana
しょーん
Romaji (Hepburn)
Shōn

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

How Shaun sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ショー Shō
N

Full reading: Shōn

Do more with Shaun in Japanese

Why Shaun 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, Shaun appears as ショーン. This is the correct and respectful way a non-Japanese name is represented; it is not a kanji "translation". A Japanese reader sees ショーン and immediately reads it by its sound, Shōn.

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 Shaun becomes ショーン 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.