Originally Posted by
BenA
for Japan, common practice is to use the closest pronounceable approximation of your English name in Japanese kana when necessary for written documents and to aid native speakers in pronunciation. (Folks have variously said they used either hiragana or katakana for this purpose - is there a standard for which alphabet to use in this situation?)
Katakana is usually used in translation from a Latin based language, but there are no hard rules.