When you’re writing a Western name in katakana there seem to be “standardized” ways of transcribing the names, but they don’t always match up phonetically (see my second edit). Is there a good reason to stick with those “standardized” transcriptions as opposed to a phonetic transcription?
For example when I see Japanese people transcribe my friend’s name, John, it’s almost always done with an オ sound like some variation of ジョン; but phonetically his name is closer to ジャン (see my second edit). They seem to be directly translating each written character without regard to the actual sound (J>ジ, OH>オ N>ン). Is there some good reason to do it this way rather than phonetically?
EDIT: Fixed the kana and wording I used.
EDIT 2: It may be important to note that **from my perspective** the pronunciation of a name *is* the name itself; the written form simply attempts to express the sound. It appears not everyone shares this perspective and it caused some little miscommunication.
7 comments
>but the way I pronounce John is closer to ジアン.
This is because you have an accent. [Listen to the AU and UK pronunciation.](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/John#English)
First off it’s ジョン, not ジオン. The small ョ attaches to ジ and makes ‘jo’.
Second, some Americans do indeed pronounce John as sort of like ‘jahn’, but in most of Britain we use a more rounded, O-like vowel. A lot of Japanese pronunciation of English words seems to be taken from the RP (standard British) pronunciations, though I wouldn’t say the Rs necessarily are, or for example ‘butter’ would be バタ rather than バター. That may be a bit of a tangent though.
Katakana transcription doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes it feels like it’s done on spelling, sometimes it feels like it’s mimicking the pronunciation, but sometimes it feels like it’s someone else’s accent. And while we’re used to seeing katakana as English loanwords, there’s plenty that are from German or Portuguese.
It’s best to stop thinking of it as transcription, but just as Japanese. John is ジョン here, regardless of how it is spelt or said anywhere else. Just like it’s Juan in Spanish. Names and words change through language, often a great deal. Some sounds just don’t work in Japanese. Of course, feel free to make your own transcription for your own name, but if it’s a common name, people will use the one they know anyway.
> but they don’t always match up with how the name is actually pronounced.
/r/USdefaultism
Transcribe your name however you want, it doesn’t matter. I live in Japan. My name has two fairly common transcriptions but one is MUCH more common than the other. Sometimes people tell me I’ve written my name wrong, and have also had clerks/staff “helpfully” correct it in the computer after I’ve submitted stuff, which screws with things sometimes, but it doesn’t happen much. I much prefer my transcription because the sound is much closer to how my name is usually pronounced where I am from. The more common transcription contains a sound that is not even present in English.
Just do it how you like. The usual Katakana for my name, “Jesse”, is ジェーシ, but I prefer ジェスイ。
If it’s spelled ジョン then Japanese people will be able to reverse engineer it back to John. If it’s ジャン they will assume it is spelled Jan. I know someone who chose a katakana spelling for his name that he felt was closer to the pronunciation of his name and he got a lot of grief about it over the years. So just decide if it’s a hill you’re willing to die on before making it official because you’ll (or in this case, your friend I guess) never hear the end of it.