howto:romanize
Table of Contents
Overview
Danbooru systems generally tries to use the original names of artists, characters and titles, but for practical reasons, like Japanese being gobbledygook to most of our users, they have to be represented in the Latin alphabet. For this Danbooru systems have their own set of romanization rules based on the revised Hepburn romanization scheme.
These rules are used both for tagging and for translations.
The system is used here because it has been deemed practical for the community's needs. The main goal is consistency; secondarily, to give a good idea of the original (hiragana and katakana) spellings and pronunciations.
DISCLAIMER
Should any official romanization exist, they take precedence over this standard.
- Changing such romanized tags to a more "correct" version would be counterproductive for search usage.
The main difference between Wikipedia romanizations and Danbooru romanizations is that Wikipedia uses macrons for certain long vowels (e.g. seiyū), while Danbooru uses the so-called waapuro style (e.g. seiyuu; see below).
General Guidelines
The key points of the Danbooru romanization standard:
- For basic gojuuon: し→shi, ち→chi, つ→tsu, ふ→fu.
- For basic youon: きゃ→kya, しゃ→sha, ちゃ→cha, にゃ→nya, ひゃ→hya, みゃ→mya, りゃ→rya (etc., symmetrically).
- For gojuuon with (han)dakuten: ざ→za, じ→ji, ず→zu (etc.).
- づ and ず both become zu, while ぢ and じ both become ji.
- For youon with (han)dakuten: じゃ→ja (etc.).
- ん becomes n, unless followed by a vowel or a y- sound, in which case it becomes n': せんかん → senkan, にんい → nin'i, じゅんや → jun'ya.
- Long vowels follow their hiragana spellings: えい→ei, おう→ou, おお→oo, とお→too, ゆう→yuu (etc.).
- ー is to be replaced by doubling the preceding vowel, e.g. ハー→haa.
- Gemination, marked with a sokuon symbol (っ in hiragana and ッ in katakana), is shown by doubling the consonant: きっと → kitto, いっぱい → ippai, ほっかい → hokkai.
- If a consonant sound is represented by a digraph, only the first letter is doubled: エッチ → ecchi, いっしょ → issho, みっつ → mittsu.
- When used as a topical particle, は becomes wa. When used as a lative particle, へ becomes e. を remains wo in all contexts.
- Japanese names are generally written in Japanese-style "Surname Given-name" order. For details, see the passage on name order under tagging help.
For anything not covered by these rules, follow the revised Hepburn romanization system.
These romanization rules have been worked out as the site grew, and there are still many tags that are not compliant with the guidelines. If you spot any poorly romanized tags, please post a message in the forum.
Examples
- あずまんが大王 → あずまんがだいおう → Danbooru: Azumanga Daiou, Official: Azumanga Daioh.
- イリヤスフィール・フォン・アインツベルン → Illyasviel von Einzbern. For non-Japanese or outright made-up proper names, use their official spellings where possible.
- 幻想郷 → げんそうきょう → Gensokyo.
- 天王 はるか → てんおう はるか → Ten'ou Haruka. (The apostrophe is needed here to distinguish てんおう from てのう.)
- 遠坂 凛 → とおさか りん → Danbooru: Toosaka Rin, Official: Tohsaka Rin.
- 葉月 → はづき → Hazuki.
- 魔法少女リリカルなのは → まほうしょうじょリリカルなのは → Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. For foreign words like lyrical, follow the spellings of their respective source languages.
- ランドセル → randoseru. As an exception to the above, loanwords whose semantics have changed in the borrowing process are often romanized as if they were Japanese.
Mistakes to avoid
- とおの → toono, not *tono, *tōno, *tohno or *touno. Watch out for style differences like this when referencing other sources, unless the official romanization says tohno.
- ゆうか → yuuka, not *yuka or *yūka. Long vowels again, unless the official romanization says yuka.
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Modified from Danbooru