Are you having a baby in Japan? Choosing a name can be hard. You don’t want to have to have a Japanese only name – but most English names don’t work in Japanese.

In this blog we list some names and their pronunciations that can work in both Japanese and English.

If you are looking for a name for your baby that will be easy to pronounce and “normal” in both English and Japanese – you should hope for a girl. 🙂

This is because there are generally more names to choose from.

Girls Names:

はな　Hanna
えりか Erika
りさ　Lisa
まりえ Marie
なおみ　Naomi
さら　Sara
めぐ Meg
あんな Anna
えり Elly
あん　Ann
えりな Erina
えりん Erin
まりな　Marina
えいみ Amy
えみり　Emilie
かれん　Karen
じゅん June

Boys Names:

じょうじ George
けん Ken
けい Kay (Kei)
じん Gene
りく Rick
れい Ray
るい Louis
べん Ben

Although there is a smaller selection of boys names to choose from – there are still several options.

One important thing to note is that there are definitely other names out there – but we chose to include the most commonly used names that have almost 1-1 direct equivalents. 🙂

If you are interested in studying Japanese in Tokyo, find out more about our school by filling out the form below.