Two different questions hide inside "what is your name in Japanese?" One is how do you write my name? The other is how do I ask someone their name in Japanese? Here's both.
How to ask “what is your name?”
The natural, polite way is:
お名前は何ですか？ — O-namae wa nan desu ka? — "What is your name?"
Softer and very common in casual settings:
お名前は？ — O-namae wa? — "Your name…?"
To answer, use 〜です (desu):
わたしはテディです。 — Watashi wa Tedy desu. — "I'm Tedy."
That's the spoken side. The written side is where it gets interesting.
Your name is written by sound, in katakana
Japanese has three scripts. Foreign names are written in katakana — the angular alphabet reserved for words borrowed from other languages. Crucially, katakana is phonetic: it captures how your name sounds, not what it means.
So "Grace" doesn't become the Japanese word for grace — it becomes グレース (Gu-re-e-su), the sounds of "Grace" spelled out.
A few examples:
| Name | Katakana | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Mike | マイク | Ma-i-ku |
| Sarah | セーラ | Se-e-ra |
| David | デイビッド | De-i-bi-ddo |
| Emma | エマ | E-ma |
| Carlos | カルロス | Ka-ru-ro-su |
Why extra sounds appear
Japanese syllables are almost all consonant + vowel, so names pick up small vowels to fit:
- Ending consonants gain a vowel. "Mike" → Ma-i-ku (the "k" becomes "ku").
- Consonant clusters get split. "Grace" → Gu-re-e-su.
- Sounds Japanese lacks get the nearest match. There's no "th" or "v" — "th" often becomes "s"/"z", and "v" becomes a "b" sound.
- Long vowels are marked with a bar: セーラ (Seera).
None of this is a mistake — it's the name faithfully rendered in Japanese sounds.
How to write your own name correctly
The reliable way is to go by pronunciation, not spelling. Say your name out loud, break it into syllables, and match each to katakana. Because it's phonetic, two names spelled differently but said the same can land on the same katakana.
If you'd rather not do it by hand, a good translator will render a name into katakana for you — and a camera translator works the other way too: point it at Japanese katakana on a sign, badge or product and read it back in English instantly. That's the same skill in reverse, and it's covered in how to translate Japanese to English.
What about kanji names?
You'll sometimes see foreign names written in kanji — characters chosen to match the sounds while also carrying a nice meaning (a popular souvenir and tattoo idea). This is decorative, not standard: officially, foreign names use katakana. If you go the kanji route, have a fluent speaker check it — the wrong character can mean something you didn't intend.
Once you can read katakana, a surprising amount of Japan opens up: menus, brands and loanwords are full of it. And whatever you can't sound out, you can point a camera at — Yomi reads Japanese in place, on your iPhone, offline.