Free online translator for converting English names to Persian (فارسی)
Persian (Farsi) uses a modified Arabic script with four additional letters: پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh), and گ (g). It's spoken by over 110 million people across Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.
Persian uses an extended form of the Arabic script with four letters Arabic does not have — پ, چ, ژ and گ — added precisely to cover sounds Persian needs. This matters immediately for foreign names, because it means Persian can write p and hard g directly, where Arabic has to approximate them. Peter is پیتر with a genuine p, and George is جورج or گئورگ with a real g. A name transliterated for Persian is often closer to the English pronunciation than the same name transliterated for Arabic.
Persian is an Indo-European language wearing a Semitic script, and the mismatch shows. The script was adopted after the Arab conquest in the seventh century, replacing earlier Pahlavi writing, and it was adapted rather than adopted wholesale. Persian kept Arabic letters that represent sounds Persian does not distinguish, so ز, ذ, ض and ظ are all pronounced z, and س, ث and ص are all s. For names this creates real ambiguity in the other direction: several different spellings sound identical.
Two letters look almost identical to their Arabic counterparts but are separate Unicode characters: Persian uses ک (U+06A9) and ی (U+06CC) where Arabic uses ك and ي. Text typed on an Arabic keyboard will contain the Arabic forms, which look the same in most fonts but will not match a search for the Persian spelling. Anyone storing Persian names in a database needs to normalise these two substitutions.
Persian transliteration uses the Persian alphabet which includes letters for sounds not in Arabic. Names are written phonetically, with Persian-specific letters for 'p', 'ch', 'zh', and 'g' sounds.
Persian handles short vowels the way Arabic does — generally unwritten — so the same ambiguity applies to unfamiliar names. Long vowels use ا, و and ی and are written. The letter و does triple duty as v, u and ow, and ی covers both y and i, so context has to resolve which is meant.
The one sound that consistently causes difficulty is the English w. Persian has no w; و is pronounced v. William therefore becomes ویلیام, read closer to Viliam. There is no workaround, because the sound genuinely does not exist in the language. English th is likewise absent and is usually rendered as t or s depending on whether the original is voiced.
Here are examples of common English names transliterated to Persian:
Explore your name in other writing systems:
Use our Persian translator above. Type your name in English and it converts to Persian script using standard phonetic transliteration.
No! Persian is an Indo-European language (related to English), while Arabic is Semitic. Persian uses a modified Arabic script but the languages are completely different.
They're the same language! 'Persian' is the English name, 'Farsi' is what native speakers call it. Both terms are correct.
Yes, Persian is written and read from right to left, like Arabic and Hebrew.
Yes! Persian has letters for sounds that Arabic lacks, including 'p', 'ch', 'zh', and hard 'g', making English transliteration accurate.
It is the Arabic script extended with four extra letters — پ, چ, ژ and گ — for sounds Persian has and Arabic does not. That lets Persian write p and hard g directly, so many foreign names transliterate more accurately than in Arabic.
Persian kept Arabic letters for sounds it does not distinguish. ز, ذ, ض and ظ are all pronounced z, and س, ث and ص are all s, so distinct spellings can be homophones.
Persian has no w sound. The letter و is pronounced v, so William becomes ویلیام, read closer to Viliam. There is no closer equivalent.