General rules for final kana in names ending with consonant?


I'm starting to study Japanese — and of course, it seems one of the first
things one is taught in any language is how to introduce oneself. So,
according to some (admittedly sketchy looking) online transliterators...

リック です。

But I wonder: The name I go by in English (Rick) ends with a consonant, so why
「ク」 and not any of the other _k_ -series kana? Is it something to do with this
name in particular, e.g. it's a masculine name? Simply because of the
[tendency](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5175/8087) (which I don't
fully understand just yet) of final ~ _u_ to become devoiced? Something else
entirely?

More generally, are there general rules for transliteration that lead to this
result? I'm afraid I'm too new to the language to know what to search for in
that department (at least, my tries so far have come up empty).




There are at least general tendencies, if not necessarily hard-and-fast rules
regarding the matter.

Just off the top of my head ---

Japanese vowel assigned vs. Ending consonant of English name

「ウ」: b, f, g, sh, k, l, m, p, s, v, z （ボブ、ジェフ、グレッグ、ジョッシュ、リック、カール、トム、etc.）

「オ」: d, t （トッド、マット, etc.）

「イ」: ch （リッチ、ミッチ）

When an English name ends with "r", our usual practice is to elongate the
preceding vowel and ignore the "r". （Oscar ==> オスカー）

Not even sure if that covers all the possible name-ending consonants in
English. Feel free to edit.

**Please remember that we are ONLY discussing the transliteration of English
names, not of names from other European languages.** I mention this because,
for instance, even though "Oscar" as an English name is 「オスカー」 as I stated
above, "Oscar" as a French name is written 「オスカル」. Likewise, "Charles" as an
English name is 「チャールズ」, but it is 「シャルル」 for the French.

<https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%AB%E3%83%AB6%E4%B8%96_(%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E7%8E%8B)>




There are at least general tendencies, if not necessarily hard-and-fast rules
regarding the matter.

Just off the top of my head ---

Japanese vowel assigned vs. Ending consonant of English name

「ウ」: b, f, g, sh, k, l, m, p, s, v, z （ボブ、ジェフ、グレッグ、ジョッシュ、リック、カール、トム、etc.）

「オ」: d, t （トッド、マット, etc.）

「イ」: ch （リッチ、ミッチ）

When an English name ends with "r", our usual practice is to elongate the
preceding vowel and ignore the "r". （Oscar ==> オスカー）

Not even sure if that covers all the possible name-ending consonants in
English. Feel free to edit.

**Please remember that we are ONLY discussing the transliteration of English
names, not of names from other European languages.** I mention this because,
for instance, even though "Oscar" as an English name is 「オスカー」 as I stated
above, "Oscar" as a French name is written 「オスカル」. Likewise, "Charles" as an
English name is 「チャールズ」, but it is 「シャルル」 for the French.

<https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%AB%E3%83%AB6%E4%B8%96_(%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E7%8E%8B)>

