Name in Japanese T Tess

Tess in Japanese

テス
Katakana
テス
Hiragana
てす
Romaji (Hepburn)
Tesu

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

How Tess sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

Te
Su

Full reading: Tesu

Do more with Tess in Japanese

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

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 Tess becomes テス 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.