20 Japanese And English Names That Sound The Same
English names said by Japanese people often sound bad. Hearing アダム (my name) always sounds funny to me even when they try to use the proper English pronunciation. To be fair though, Japanese names said by Westerners sound no better. There is almost a guarantee that there will be emphasis on the wrong syllable.
Let’s start with the girls:
1. 沙羅 Sara
2. 恵里香 Erica
3. 直美 Naomi
4. カレン Karen
5. 花 Hanna
6. まりあ Maria
7. れな Lena
8. りさ Lisa
9. 安奈 Anna
And the boys:
1. 譲 Joe
2. 譲二 George
3. 力 Ricky
4. 健 Ken
4. 健人 Kent
5. 慈英 Jay
6. 玲音 Leon
7. 怜 Ray
8. 暖 Dan
9. るい Louie
10. 悠仁 Eugene
11. 平良 Tyler
Ready to change your name? Or name your new child? Then you are all set.
Any other good ones you know of? Can we get this list bigger?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
If we have a girl one day, we want to name her Euna (ユナ).
A woman in our church named her children サラ and カリン without knowing that these are also English names Sarah and Karin.
Yeah, I think Japanese are often surprised when they find out their names are also common English names.
I was also surprised when I found out エリカ is not a borrowed name but an actual Japanese name. Especially since I had seen it in katakana.
Nice names! But Tyler is a girl’s name?
Mistake fixed!
But, now that I think about it, I kind of like the name Tyler for a girl. Why not? After all, many girl’s names started out as boys names (Ashley, Evelyn, Sidney all come to mind. And Taylor is certainly used for both sexes.)
I’m sorry but i have to disagree because english and japanese doesnt sound the same.
However i want to note:
1- tyler is not tairyou!!
3- kent is not kento!!!!
3- l is not r!!!
………. 以上
平良 is taira, not tairyou.
And neither the English l or r exist in Japanese.
As I prefaced, some are identical (ex. Ken, Joe, Jay, Dan, Eugene, Naomi, Anna, Hanna), and the rest come very close.
When you translate an English speaking girl’s name, Ericka, into Japanese, you say エリカ, so you really have to think how would it be in katakana. レイチェル is not a Japanese name. It would be a foreign name, even though it sounds nothing like the English pronunciation of Rachel. But エリカ can be used a lot easier in both languages than ふさえ or さおり because of the similarity.
A couple of names that come to mind. Sonja/Sonya (ソニャ) and Maya. No idea if the latter is written in hiragana or katana, and I have no idea if either name even exists in Japan, but I would think the pronunciation is similar anyway.
Not sure about Sonya, but Maya definitely exists.
Since I’m currently on a FFX hype, that reminds me of Yuna (ユウナ)
Is Yuna also an English name?
There’s also Taiga, which is my favourite. It seems more acceptable than Tiger somehow.
D’oh, I forgot my name too. Kairi is very similar to Kiley, or Khairi (which is a guy’s name).
Good additions! And you are definitely right. The Japanese Taiga is a lot less rare than the English Tiger.
I know that my name would be pronounced “Herisha” in Japanese, but I can’t write it because 1. I don’t have a Japanese keyboard (I should really get that…) and 2. I only know Hiragana and learning Katakana, so…
You don’t need a Japanese keyboard but you do need to install Japanese language support. There are plenty of tutorials for both Mac and Windows so a Google search should get you the right info.
You can also download the free trial of NJStar, a Japanese word processor. I find using it to be a lot less finicky than the Windows native language bar.
I actually use Google for all my devices: Mac, Windows and Android
http://www.google.co.jp/ime/
You can get most of the sounds of your name. It would be closer toフェリシア.
For the keyboard check out:
http://www.coscom.co.jp/learnjapanese801/index.html
We named our son Kai which was originally meant to be short for Kyle but later just stuck with Kai. Works great in Japanese as a common and now popular name as 海 or where we used a more unique kanji which means ore/paddle 櫂
Oh nice. That name does work well in both languages.
My name at least is three simple syllables; ヘレナ. The l sound gets a bit mushed but at least there’s no random added sounds like the ム in アダム.
I’ll never forgive the ム sound! Even leaving out the ム, my name is never pronounced properly when Japanese people speak English.
Ellie/Elly also work quite well as エリ / 恵理 in Japanese.
There is another Kanji for Dan as well:
弾
I approve.