Popular English Names in Japanese

This list contains 100 popular boys’ and girls’ names in North America (mainly the USA). Due to this, the Japanese translation listed in this guide uses the “standard” pronunciation found in the USA.

For example, in the USA, “Michael” is pronounced as “My-kul,” but can also be pronounced as “Mee-kel,” “Mee-shell,” or “Mee-chai-el.” We will be using the pronunciation commonly found in the United States of America.

How to Use this Name List

This list consists of 4 columns: the English column, followed by the “Katakana,” “Hiragana,” and “Other Variations” columns. Katakana and hiragana are two of the writing systems in Japanese. 

Katakata is commonly used to write non-Japanese words, while hiragana is usually used to write native Japanese words. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, since all English names are non-Japanese words, they are written in katakana.

The hiragana column was included for reference. While you could use the hiragana characters to express an English name, using katakana is much more natural and accepted.

The “other variations” columns include any other standard pronunciations, if there are any. Please note that these are only written using katakana.

Popular Men’s / Boy’s Names in Japanese

Popular Women’s/Girl’s Names in Japanese