Hana LearnHana LearnType it, see it in katakana, hear it out loud. Standard spellings for hundreds of names — honest phonetics for the rest.
Japanese writes every foreign name in katakana — the angular script reserved for borrowed words. There's no choosing involved: on a Japanese bank card, class roster or name tag, Michael is マイケル and Sarah is サラ. The conversion is purely phonetic: your name's sounds are rebuilt from the ~100 syllables Japanese has.
1 · L becomes R. Japanese has one liquid consonant, a soft tap between English L and R. Lisa → リサ (risa), Blake → ブレイク (bureiku).
2 · Consonants get vowels. Japanese syllables end in vowels (or ん), so clusters are unpacked: Chris → クリス (ku-ri-su) — three syllables where English hears one.
3 · Long sounds get the bar. The ー mark stretches a vowel: Carter → カーター (kaataa). If your name has an "ar", "er" or "or", expect one.
Foreign names don't get real kanji. You'll see novelty "kanji names" (ateji) on souvenirs — characters picked for sound, with meanings that range from poetic to accidental comedy. Fun as art; never used in real life. If you want to write your name properly, learn the katakana in it — every character is on our free katakana chart with audio and stroke counts.
Katakana is the script Japanese uses for all foreign names — on IDs, name tags, credit cards and school rosters. Kanji versions of foreign names (ateji) exist only as novelty art: the characters are picked for sound, and their meanings are usually accidental.
For common names, yes — we use the standard katakana spellings seen in Japanese media and official use. For rarer names the tool converts the sounds phonetically, which is exactly what a Japanese speaker would do; small variations are normal.
Japanese builds words from about 100 fixed syllables, so sounds it doesn't have get mapped to the closest one: L becomes R (Lisa → リサ), V often becomes B, and consonant clusters get vowels inserted (Chris → ku-ri-su). It's not an accent — it's the writing system.
The chōonpu, a long-vowel mark. It stretches the vowel before it — the アー in カーター (Carter) is a held 'aa'. Katakana uses it constantly for foreign words.
Yes — every character of your katakana name is on our free katakana chart with audio and stroke counts, and the Hana Learn app teaches you to trace each one with your finger.
Hana Learn teaches you to trace every katakana in your name with your finger — then reads it back to you in a real voice.
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