Hoshi is a stellar name.
Tom Modachi sounds friendly, and Sue Barassi is wonderful!
Convert your favorite western name to sound Japanese.
Examples:
Verna = Baana
Judy = Judi
Lisa = Risa
Nancy = Nanshii
Hillary = Hirarii
This is a racist comment, just saying.
I have a girl from Japan on my soccer team named Aya, which is short and sounds nice.
I don’t think it is. The Japanese language lacks a number of sounds that are common in Western languages, and vice versa. There are conventions for converting Western proper nouns to Japanese.
For example, Japanese lacks an L sound. The convention is to replace L’s with R’s. Hillary Clinton’s first name is rendered as Hirarii in Japanese newspapers. That is simply a standard conversion. It isn’t racist to note it.
The siteuses a dictionary for 4000 common names, and standard rules to convert less common ones.
English, please. In this particular instance you’re using “Western” to mean “English”.
How does that work? An English name like “Lisa” gives them pause, but they can magically pronounce Hungarian names perfectly? That’s sensational, someone really ought to study that stuff.
The page linked is about English names. French, Italian, Spanish, German… or Hungarian words would follow adaptation rules which are different from those used in that page. For starters: Italian, Spanish and Japanese all use the same vowel phonemes so there is nothing to adapt there.
You can type in any name you want. Luigi transliterates to Ruiji, Leonardo to Reonarudo.
The writer of the page, himself, speaks about transcriptions from English. Those transcriptions treat Luigi and Leonardo as if they were English. Note that the English pronunciations of foreign names are often problematic; when dealing with EFL speakers I spell my name removing the end and (depending on location) change one other letter in the middle to keep them from choking on their own tongues or from using vowels which aren’t there.
I’m pretty sure those are the actual names used in Japan for the brother of Mario and the painter of the Mona Lisa, so I guess you’ll just have to take that up with them.
No, it’s totally reasonable; Japanese has a small phonemic inventory and very strict phonological rules, and English loanwords are common enough that there’s practically a set procedure for converting them to a Japanese-friendly pronunciation. The word for ‘basketball’, for example, is basukettobooru’— not ‘basuketoboru’, or ‘basukettobou’, but exactly the first word there. It’s often consider cool or high-class, kind of like French in English.
One of the first things we did in the first Japanese class I took was to take our English names and write them in katakana— not just a direct transliteration, but making conversions like (as above) ‘Nancy → Nanshii’ to deal with vowel duration (as Japanese marks vowels for length but has a pitch- rather than stress-based accent) and the fact that Japanese /s/ becomes [ɕ] before /i/.
Also, as mentioned above, the ‘r’ in ‘Akari’ is basically the ‘t’ sound in ‘better’ or ‘writer’ (at least, in varieties of American English that pronounce ‘writer’ and ‘rider’ the same). Of course, it’s not like your puppy actually speaks Japanese, so pronounce it however you want. It’s hard, though, to give any more advice without seeing a cute puppy picture.
Tiny correction: red and white is “kōhaku” (or “kouhaku”), with the long O sound. “Kohaku” with the short O means amber.
The term “Kōhaku” is very firmly associated with the Kōhaku Uta Gassen, an annual musical TV show/competition. I wouldn’t use it as a pet name personally.
Akako
[del]Momo[/del] sounds like no
[del]Toshiko[/del] sounds like no
[del]Kohaku[/del] we have a “Kona”. I will call for the wrong dog. I will.
Akane
Akari
Akiko
[del]Miko[/del] We had a Michi. It’s different, but I will end up using Michiko in no time.
[del]Keiko[/del] no “K” names.
Yaeno
Mari
Aka-to-Shiro
Hoshi
Aya
My choice is Akiko. 
Thank you everyone for your suggestions!
Cute. I like it.
Guess I’m too late. I was going to suggest Gamera.
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If the name you chose isn’t set in stone 
yet, I respectfully suggest Hachiko.
I’ll have to second, third, fourth, and fiftieth this motion.
Also, just roll your R’s slightly like in Spanish. That would be sufficient.
–G!
I love that story. When I was in Tokyo, I saw the statue. My office was quite close, which was lucky.
Yes, I know I need to share a picture. Hang tight. They will be along in just a minute. 