Katakana, kanji and ateji: how names are written in Japanese

Katakana is the standard spelling

Japanese writes names from other languages in katakana, a script that records sound and nothing else. Andrew is アンドリュー, Charlotte is シャーロット. This is the form you will see on a Japanese business card, in a newspaper, or on an official document. A katakana name has no meaning of its own — each character is a syllable.

Hiragana writes the same sounds

Hiragana covers exactly the same set of sounds as katakana, in a rounder script used mainly for native Japanese words and grammar. Andrew in hiragana is あんどりゅー. It is correct, but a foreign name written in hiragana is unusual outside handwriting and material for learners.

Ateji: kanji chosen for their sound

Ateji (当て字) is the practice of writing a word with kanji picked for how they are read rather than for what they mean. Every kanji has one or more readings, so a name can be spelled by choosing, for each of its sounds, a character that is read that way — and because each of those characters also has a meaning, the result carries meaning that katakana cannot.

Notice what the kanji in the Charlotte example do not carry: the long vowel after “sha” (ー) and the doubled “t” (ッ). Ateji spell the syllables; those two marks are how katakana records vowel length and a pause, and the kanji version simply leaves them to the reader.

Ateji are how a foreign name is written as calligraphy, as a seal or as art. They are not an official spelling, and there is no single correct set of kanji for a name — which is why each name page here shows several, chosen for different themes.

How a name sounds in Japanese

Japanese has no stress accent. Where English leans on one syllable — AN-drew — Japanese gives each beat the same length: an-do-ryū. Long vowels (written ー in katakana, and ā ī ū ē ō in the romanization on this site) take two beats, and a small ッ is a one-beat pause before a doubled consonant, as in Sha-rot-to.

Before you use one as a tattoo

Read the meaning of every character, not just the overall theme. A kanji can match a sound perfectly and still carry a meaning you would not want on your skin, and some characters are avoided in Japanese names for reasons their dictionary meaning alone does not show. See how the renderings on this site are made and checked.