My Japanese knowledge is very limited, so I am not good in Japanese alphabet.  
With the help of an online [Japanese name
converter](https://apps.nolanlawson.com/japanese-name-converter), I tried
writing a name in Japanese, but the resulting name does not sound exactly as
it is in English. It seems some characters turn into other characters.

The name is: Siavash Divani The result is: シアバシュ ディバニ (shiabashu dibani)

As you see in the parentheses, it sounds different from the English spelling.
Is it possible to write the name in Japanese in a way that sounds just the way
it is written in English? If the answer is no, why?
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system) says that
only the kanji system has over 50,000 characters. So, it seems it should
support writing foreign names in a way that sounds the way you like.
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translation pronunciation katakana
Why Can't A Name Be Written Literally In Japanese?
**Basically, there are just some sounds that exist in other languages which
cannot easily be phonemically represented in Japanese.**

Disclaimer - this is a simplified answer, but ...

As with any language, you must differentiate between the actual sounds
(phonology) and the writing system which represents the language
(orthography). Although there are several thousand kanji characters which form
the basis of the writing system (2136 on the official list), that doesn't mean
there are 2136 individual sounds. In fact, there are approximately 50 sounds
in Japanese (or around 100 if you include dakuon and yoon). By 'sounds', I
mean the variations of vowel and consonant combinations which are used in
spoken Japanese.

That is probably a lot less than you imagined. As such, there are some sounds
that exist in other languages which are not easily transferred to Japanese.
They simply are not part of the standard collection of sounds in Japanese
phonology. A famous example is that there is no strict equivalent of 'l' and
'r' in Japanese - the ら、り、る、れ、ろ sounds are used to represent both. So if your
name was 'Roland', it would be difficult to represent the difference between
the 'r' and 'l' sounds. It would be ローランド, which when pronounced would not
contain the distinction that you would hear if pronounced in English, for
example.
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The amount of kanji is irrelevant because they are a _writing_ system. The
thing is that, when writing a foreign word in japanese, what happens is that
the sound of the word is aproximated to the sounds available in the Japanese
language, and then it can be written down using a Japanese _syllabary_ such as
hiragana or katakana (not Kanji). What you see in alphabet script is just the
transliteration from the version in the japanese syllabary (where the original
pronunciation has been lost already) to the western alphabet script.

For this reason, what is important here is the set of _sounds_ (to be
accurate, phonemes) that Japanese people use in their tongue. This set of
sounds is not so large when compared to other languages.

Let's compare what wikipedia says in regards of phonemes for both Japanese and
English:

> The phonology of Japanese features about **15 consonant** phonemes, the
> cross-linguistically typical **five-vowel** system of /a, i, u, e, o/, and a
> relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few
> consonant clusters.
>
> The number and distribution of phonemes in English vary from dialect to
> dialect, and also depend on the interpretation of the individual researcher.
> The number of **consonant** phonemes is generally put at **24** (or slightly
> more). The number of **vowels** is subject to greater variation; in the
> system presented on this page there are **20–25** vowel phonemes in Received
> Pronunciation, **14–16** in General American and **19–20** in Australian
> English.

  * Japanese: 15 consonant phonemes and 5 vowels

  * English: 24 consonant phonemes and 14 vowels (at least)

Since there are far more sounds in English than in Japanese, that means for
sure that there are English sounds that Japanese people can't say using their
phonetic system. That's one of the reasons why it is not possible to say
foreign words with an accurate pronunciation for Japanese people. The sound
"si" does not exist in Japanese, that's why the "Si" at Siavash becomes "Shi".

Another aspect which is equally important is that, aside from ん (which sounds
like 'n'), any other consonant phoneme in japanese is necessarily followed by
a vowel, so it is not possible to reproduce combinations of consonant sounds
together with accuracy, nor consonant phonemes alone either. That's the reason
why the "sh" at Siavash is changed to "shu". In the japanese system,
separating 'sh' from 'u' (or another vowel) is not a possibility. They form an
indivisible unit both in terms of writing (Shi, ジ , one single symbol) and
speech.

There may be other limitations or constraints that contribute to change
significantly the original pronunciation of a foreign word in Japanese.
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The simple answer is that there aren't enough sounds.

There are set sounds for the vowels "e", "i", "a", "o", and "u", as well as 40
other standard sounds and one standalone "n." These sounds are "k", "s", "t",
"n", "h", "r", which each have the full three kana, as well as "y" that has
three kana and "w" that has two (Okinawan has two other "w"s in _we_ and _wi_
, but these are non-standard)

If we add the voiced "Diacritics", then we add sounds for "g", "z", "d", "b",
and "p", adding another 25.

Adding digraphs (e.g., "kya", "sha"), we get another 30 sounds.

This is a grand total of 103 sounds. However, you will notice that a few
sounds are missing when compared to English: "v", "l", "x", "f", and "q".

X is normally substituted for a "z-" sound (as in "xylophone"), while using x
(as in "x-ray") is pronounced "ekkusu."

L is almost always substituted with "r-", thsu "ball" can be "baru".

Q is substituted with a "k-"

F is written as "fu" plus a smaller vowel kana (unless the sound is explicitly
"fu")

V is seems to be always _pronounced_ as a "b", and the standard writing is as
such, however the non-standard writing can be done by putting the voice marks
by the "u" kana and writing a smaller vowel kana next to it (similar to the
digraphs).

Your program likely didn't utilize this way of writing "v", so if you really
want it:

シア **ヴァ** シュ ディ **ヴァ** ニ

As an aside, the reason for the trailing "u" on your first name is that
Japanese is a phonetic language, so with the exception of "n" (sometimes
pronounced "m" when before a "p" or "b"), all letters have a consonant
followed by a vowel. Most adults drop the trailing "u" when reading (thus
hearing "des" instead of "desu"), so your name should be pronounced fairly
close.
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