howto:romanize
Danbooru 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 has its own set of romanization rules based on the revised Hepburn romanization scheme.
These rules are used both for tagging and for translations.
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).
For Japanese names, the Danbooru standard usually takes precedence over any officially provided spelling. If the official or otherwise established romanization of a name differs from our standard, it should be mentioned on the applicable wiki or artist page, preferably with reliable sources provided, but not used for tags or 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.
Note that exceptions can and will be made in the unique case where an artist, character, or copyright name has an alternate romanization that is consistent, prevalent, and significant by its copyright owner or publisher e.g. yazawa nico, ayase eli. Changing such romanized tags to a more "correct" version would be counterproductive for search usage.
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.).
- For youon with (han)dakuten -- じゃ→ja (etc.).
- づ and ず both become zu, while ぢ and じ both become ji.
- ん becomes n or n'; the latter is used to disambiguate when the ん is followed by a vowel or a y-sound: 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 sokuon symbols in hiragana and katakana (っ and ッ respectively), is to be shown by doubling consonants: いっしょ → issho, えっち → ecchi, おんな → onna.
- を→wo; は becomes wa when used as a topic marker.
- When used as a particle, へ should be written "e" and not "he".
- Japanese names are generally written in Japanese-style "LastName FirstName" 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 → Azumanga Daiou.
- 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 → Gensoukyou.
- 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 → Toosaka 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.
- ゆうか → yuuka, not *yuka or *yūka. Long vowels again.