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Japan Know How

David in Japanese

David in Japanese

The name David is written デイビッド in Japanese.

デイビッド

de-i-bi-ddo

5 morae

Syllable by syllable

David comes out at 5 beats in Japanese, the same as its 5 letters in English. That is a coincidence rather than a rule — the two writing systems count different things.

  1. デde
  2. イi
  3. ビbi
  4. ッa held beat
  5. ドdo

The small ッ has no sound of its own. It holds the beat and doubles the consonant after it, which is why David takes longer to say in Japanese than an English speaker expects.

Written vertically

デイビッド

Vertical writing runs top to bottom, and columns run right to left. You will meet it on book spines, shop curtains, formal letters and name cards. At 5 characters, David makes a long column — which is one reason long foreign names get shortened in everyday Japanese writing.

In kanji: ateji suggestions

Ateji picks kanji for how they sound, not for what they mean — the same trick that writes America as 亜米利加. Every sound in David has kanji that genuinely read that way, so these sets stay close to how the name is actually said.

出伊美土

出deto come out
伊ithat one; Italy
美bibeauty
土doearth, soil

出依備度

出deto come out
依ito rely on
備bito prepare
度dodegree, measure

The held beat ッ gets no character — it is a pause, not a sound.

Read straight through, 4 characters is a mouthful even in Japanese. A shorter set built from the first two or three syllables is the usual compromise for a seal or a signature.

These are suggestions built from sound, not a translation of your name. We can tell you how each character reads and what it means on its own; we cannot tell you what the combination looks like to a Japanese reader, and we will not tell you it is safe to have tattooed. For anything permanent, show the exact design to someone who reads Japanese fluently first.

How common is David in America?

1955peak year
2ndrank that year
51strank in 2025
3,689,613born with it since 1880

18802025

It reads as a name of its era, and has not returned.

Source: US Social Security Administration, national data 1880–2025. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published, so rare spellings are missing rather than absent.

David in Japanese name divination

デ5 イ2 ビ4 ッ3 ド4 = 18 strokes

NumberStrokesReadingMeaning
地格 Earth18大吉 AuspiciousDevelopment
総格 Total18大吉 AuspiciousDevelopment

地格 Earth — The given name alone. Traditionally read as early life.

総格 Total — Every stroke in the name. Read as the whole life.

Only two of the five numbers can be calculated from a given name alone. Add a family name in the converter to see all five.

Seimei handan is a traditional Japanese practice, not a prediction. The stroke counts are arithmetic and verifiable; the readings attached to them are folklore, and schools disagree. We use the Kumazaki classification, which is the most widely published one.

This name comes to 18 strokes, which this school reads as 大吉. 15 of the 81 numbers in the table share that reading.

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