Name in Japanese W Willow

Willow in Japanese

ウィロー
Katakana
ウィロー
Hiragana
うぃろー
Romaji (Hepburn)
Wirō

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

How Willow sounds in Japanese

Read it one katakana at a time:

ウィ Wi
ロー

Full reading: Wirō

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

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 Willow becomes ウィロー 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.