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I'm trying to translate my German name **Markus** to Japanese, which seems
quite difficult.

My first approach was just to transcribe it.

```

    Ma → ma → マ  
    r  → ru → ル  
    ku → ku → ク  
    s  → su → ス
    
```

giving **マルクス**.

Now, after reading a bit, I found this blog entry: [What is my name in
Japanese?](https://www.linguajunkie.com/japanese/whats-my-name-in-japanese)

There I found Mark which is translated as _Māku_ マーク, so my name might be like
this **_Mākusu_ マークス**.

Then I found this [stack
link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/46812/converting-names-to-
japanese) with a link to a [website](http://apps.nolanlawson.com/japanese-
name-converter/#?q=Markus) with a translation: The result was **_Mākasu_
マーカス**.

Well, I'm a little confused how to do it "right".
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names spelling
Translate German name "Markus" to Japanese
Both マルクス and マーカス are common transcriptions of the name Markus or Marcus.

Roughly speaking you can think of マルクス as a more German/Scandinavian-sounding
transcription and マーカス as a more English-sounding transcription.

The English pronunciation of Marcus is [[ˈmɑːrkəs]]. The English //r// can be
silent (e.g. [[ˈmɑːkəs]]) and often is transcribed as a lengthening of the
previous vowel marked by the 長音符 _chōonpu_ ー. The German pronunciation of
Markus is [ˈmaʁkʊs]. The German [[ʁ]] is never silent and often transcribed as
ル. Compare the transcriptions of the English word "card" カード (note the ー) and
the German word "Karte" カルテ (note the ル). Also note that the U in
Markus/Marcus is pronounced differently in English and in German: [[ə]] vs.
[[ʊ]] which explains why the English transcription uses カ _ka_ whereas the
German transcription uses ク _ku_.

There is no "wrong" way to transcribe your name, but I think マルクス would be a
natural choice that would also easily be understood as a transcription of the
German name Markus.
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This gets a bit pedantic on the terminology -- sorry for that. I just want to
make sure we're clear on what we're talking about. :)

The conversion of _Markus_ to マルクス is technically called
[_transliteration_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration) (from
_trans-_ [ _über_ , _um_ ] + _litera_ [ _Buchstabe_ ] → [ _umschreiben_ ]),
focusing on the **letters** and **written forms**. If your focus is on the
**meaning** , then you're looking at
[_translation_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation) (from _trans-_ [
_über_ , _um_ ] + _lātus_ [ _getragen_ ] → [ _übertragen_ , _übersetzen_ ]).
For names, you'd look for a Japanese name of similar meaning.

German _Markus_ comes from the Latin _Marcus_ , and ultimately derives from
_Mars_ (as in, the god of war) + suffix _-cus_ , denoting "(masculine
adjective) having that quality". Japanese masculine given names with somewhat-
similar derivations might include:

  * 軍太郎 ( _Guntarō_ )
  * 軍之佐 or 軍之助 ( _Gunnosuke_ )
  * 軍夫 ( _Isao_ )
  * 軍兵 or 軍平 ( _Gunpei_ )

I don't think I've personally ever heard the first two, so they might be
archaic -- or maybe just outside my immediate experience. I've heard the third
and fourth before; in fact, when I did a homestay in Japan decades ago, my
host-nephew was named Gunpei.

Anyway, food for thought. Dealing with names across languages and cultures is
always an interesting process. Viel Glück!
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