= sign in a katakana name


I was surprised when I came across this Wikipedia page:
[アーシュラ・K・ル＝グウィン](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BBK%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AB%EF%BC%9D%E3%82%B0%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3)

Does someone knows what that = sign is? I can see it works as a separator like
「・」 Is it simply an alternative?




It's a [double
hyphen](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%80%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%83%8F%E3%82%A4%E3%83%95%E3%83%B3),
not an equals sign.

One of its uses is when transliterating names that have a hyphen in them. This
is to avoid confusion with the extended sound symbol (`ー`) in Japanese. For
example: `クロード・レヴィ＝ストロース (Claude Lévi-Strauss)`

Another time when the double hyphen is used is when in the original language,
there is a stop in the sound. Your example fits this case. `アーシュラ・K・ル＝グウィン
(Ursula Kroeber Le Guin)`. In English there's a very obvious stop after `Le`.

Now you might ask why use the double hyphen instead of `・` (the
[interpunct](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E9%BB%92)). After all,
`・` is used way more often in nearly all cases as noted
[here](http://www.raitonoveru.jp/howto/p3.html): `中黒（・）を用いるのが一般的だが、厳密な規定は無い。`.
It seems that it mostly depends on whether the text is vertical or horizontal.

For vertical text, `・` is preferred overwhelmingly. For horizontal texts, `゠`
can be used instead, although people still generally use `・`. Source: [The
best answer from here](http://q.hatena.ne.jp/1322033268)




It's a [double
hyphen](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%80%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%83%8F%E3%82%A4%E3%83%95%E3%83%B3),
not an equals sign.

One of its uses is when transliterating names that have a hyphen in them. This
is to avoid confusion with the extended sound symbol (`ー`) in Japanese. For
example: `クロード・レヴィ＝ストロース (Claude Lévi-Strauss)`

Another time when the double hyphen is used is when in the original language,
there is a stop in the sound. Your example fits this case. `アーシュラ・K・ル＝グウィン
(Ursula Kroeber Le Guin)`. In English there's a very obvious stop after `Le`.

Now you might ask why use the double hyphen instead of `・` (the
[interpunct](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E9%BB%92)). After all,
`・` is used way more often in nearly all cases as noted
[here](http://www.raitonoveru.jp/howto/p3.html): `中黒（・）を用いるのが一般的だが、厳密な規定は無い。`.
It seems that it mostly depends on whether the text is vertical or horizontal.

For vertical text, `・` is preferred overwhelmingly. For horizontal texts, `゠`
can be used instead, although people still generally use `・`. Source: [The
best answer from here](http://q.hatena.ne.jp/1322033268)

