Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana, or is this dependent on the type or writing, and the target audience? For example, this Japanese Wikipedia entry on Steven Bradbury uses katakana, while this Wikipedia entry on JRuby uses romaji for the contributors.
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1 Answer
As you guessed, it depends on the type of writing and the target audience, and also on the style. In text written for general public, such as newspaper articles, foreign personal names are usually written in katakana. In academic books and papers, it is more common to see names in the Latin script (at least in mathematics and computer science).
As for Wikipedia, a guideline of the Japanese Wikipedia states that foreign names other than Korean and Chinese names should be usually written in katakana. I do not know how strongly this guideline is enforced.
answered Sep 4, 2011 at 2:49
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1+1 on academic writing often (but not always) using romaji. I have yet to see a popular magazine or news website using anything but kana for Western names.– DaveCommented Sep 4, 2011 at 3:25
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8Just anecdotes for consideration: I was recently involved in a law suit. On all legal documents pertaining to the court case, my name was written in romaji. I think however, this was because that was how my lawyer originally submitted my name. I believe that for a court of civil law, they don't impose a rule on how your name is presented, they just insist on consistency. On the other hand, I've started a few companies, and in each case, I was required to provide an official katakana spelling of my name, along with a registered seal using that name. Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 11:42
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6As for Korean, it should be written in katakana rather than kanji, and Chinese names should be written in kanji rather than katakana and read by the Japanese pronounciation. For example, 金大中 is キムデジュン, not きんだいちゅう, but 毛沢東 is もうたくとう, not マオジードン. This is due to a policy called mutalism. You treat back the way the other country treats you. In Korean, Japanese proper nouns are read close to the Japanese pronounciation, whereas in Chinese, they are read according to the Chinese reading of the character.– user458Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 13:18
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This is the best possible answer I could hope for! It means I was correct in using romaji in my RubyKaigi talk, but that a schoolkid I was talking to wasn't wasting his time learning his name in romaji. Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 12:09
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For Korean, a colleague of mine writes his name in Kanji but reads as the the Katakana reading like Korean. Whereas another Chinese friend writes the furigana for her name close to the Chinese reading Commented Oct 4, 2013 at 8:00