What Is the EmojiEmoji
A Japanese word (絵文字) meaning 'picture character' — small graphical symbols used in digital communication to express ideas, emotions, and objects. Translator?
Emojis look the same everywhere — a 🍜 noodle bowl renders identically on an iPhone in Tokyo and an Android in São Paulo. But behind every emoji is a name, and that name changes dramatically depending on the language you speak.
The Emoji Translator bridges that gap. It lets you look up any emoji and instantly see its official name and associated keywords in up to 15 languages — all sourced from the Unicode Consortium's standardized annotation data. Whether you're coordinating across an international team, studying a new language, or building a multilingual app, the translator gives you a clear view of how any emoji is understood around the world.
Supported Languages
The Emoji Translator covers 15 languages drawn from the UnicodeUnicode
Universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique number to every character across all writing systems and symbol sets, including emoji. CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository) dataset. These are not machine translations — they are community-verified annotations maintained by linguists and native speakers worldwide.
- English — the Unicode baseline and most widely used emoji reference
- Korean (한국어) — comprehensive CLDRCLDR (CLDR)
The Common Locale Data Repository, a Unicode project providing locale-specific data including emoji names and search keywords in 100+ languages. coverage with culturally adapted terms - Japanese (日本語) — rich annotations reflecting Japan's deep emoji culture
- Chinese Simplified (中文简体) — Mainland Chinese naming conventions
- Spanish (Español) — covers the largest Spanish-speaking user base globally
- Portuguese (Português) — includes Brazilian Portuguese conventions
- Hindi (हिन्दी) — one of the world's most spoken languages, well-represented in CLDR
- Arabic (العربية) — right-to-left script with culturally specific adaptations
- French (Français) — widely spoken across Europe and Africa
- Russian (Русский) — full annotation coverage for Cyrillic script
- German (Deutsch) — precise, compound-noun naming style
- Turkish (Türkçe) — growing CLDR coverage with distinct vocabulary
- Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt) — tone-marked script with nuanced annotations
- Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) — reflects one of the largest mobile-first user bases
- Thai (ภาษาไทย) — script-specific annotations with cultural context
Together, these 15 languages cover the native tongues of over 5 billion people.
How to Use the Translator
Search by Emoji Character
The simplest approach is to paste an emoji directly into the search field. Try 🌸 — the cherry blossom — and the translator immediately shows its name in every supported language. In English it's "cherry blossom," in Japanese it's "桜" (sakura), in Arabic "زهرة الكرز."
You can type emoji from your system keyboard or use the Emoji Keyboard to browse and select characters to pass into the translator.
Search by Word in Any Language
You don't have to start with an emoji. Type "luna" and moon-related emojis surface. Type "사랑" (the Korean word for love) and you'll find heart emojis and affection-related characters. This cross-language search is especially useful when a teammate sends an emoji you've never seen — paste it in and get an instant explanation.
Browse Translations Side by Side
The translator displays all languages simultaneously in a comparison layout. You can scan down the list and see where names diverge — which is often the most interesting part. A single emoji can carry a culturally loaded name in one language and a purely descriptive one in another.
Why Emoji Names Differ Across Languages
Cultural Adaptation vsVariation Selector (VS)
Unicode characters (VS-15 U+FE0E and VS-16 U+FE0F) that modify whether a character renders in text (monochrome) or emoji (colorful) presentation. Literal Translation
When Unicode assigns a name to an emoji, it uses English as the baseline. But CLDR annotations are not mechanical translations — they are localization decisions made by native speakers asking: "What would someone in this country actually call this?" That question produces fascinating divergences.
A literal translation preserves the Unicode English name as closely as possible. A cultural adaptation replaces it with the locally familiar term, even if it doesn't map cleanly back to the English label.
Examples: 🍙 Rice Ball vs おにぎり, 🧧 Red Envelope vs 红包
The 🍙 emoji is officially named "rice ball" in English — a generic, descriptive label. In Japanese it's "おにぎり" (onigiri), the specific term any Japanese speaker recognizes immediately. The annotation doesn't translate "rice ball" — it uses the culturally accurate word.
The 🧧 emoji shows a red envelope, a traditional Lunar New Year gift in Chinese and Vietnamese cultures. In English it's "red envelope" — factually correct but culturally neutral. In Chinese (Simplified), it's annotated as "红包" (hóngbāo) — a term with enormous cultural weight that has even entered global tech vocabulary through payment apps. In Vietnamese, "bao lì xì" reflects a localized but related tradition.
These aren't edge cases. Food, celebrations, and family relationships tend to show the most variation across languages, precisely because culture and language are most tightly intertwined in those domains.
Use Cases
International Team Communication
Remote teams use emojis constantly in Slack, Teams, and email. But a shared visual language can mask real misunderstandings. The 🙏 emoji means "please," "thank you," or "prayer" depending on where you grew up. When a team member uses an unfamiliar emoji, the translator provides immediate cultural and linguistic context.
Language Learning with Emojis
Emojis are an underused vocabulary tool. Because they pair a visual concept with a word, they create a memory hook that word lists alone don't. A learner studying Japanese can use the translator to find names for everyday objects — 🍱 becomes "弁当" (bentō) — and connect visual memory to new vocabulary. The translator effectively turns the emoji set into a 3,953-item visual dictionary in 15 languages.
Localization and i18n Development
For developers building multilingual apps, the translator is a quick reference for emoji annotationEmoji Annotation
Short keywords and descriptions associated with each emoji for search, text-to-speech, and accessibility purposes. strings. If your app displays emoji names or keywords in the user's locale — for accessibility labels, search indexes, or content tagging — CLDR data is the standard source. The translator gives you a fast preview without parsing XML files directly, and lets you verify how an emoji will be labeled in Arabic or Thai before your UI ships.
CLDR: Where the Data Comes From
All translation data is sourced from the CLDR — the Common Locale Data Repository maintained by the Unicode Consortium. CLDR is the world's largest repository of locale-specific data, and its emoji annotations power accessibility features across iOS, Android, and Windows.
Each emoji has two annotation types: a tts (text-to-speech) name — the primary human-readable label — and a set of keywords for search and disambiguation. The translator surfaces both. Annotations are contributed by native speakers through the Unicode CLDR Survey Tool and updated with each annual CLDR release, keeping the data current as new emojis enter the standard.
Tips for Getting the Most from the Translator
Start with an unfamiliar emoji. Paste it in and get the English name plus context in every supported language — the fastest way to decode something you've never seen.
Compare food and celebration emojis. These categories show the most cultural variation. Items like 🥮 (moon cake) and 🎋 (tanabata tree) have annotations that tell small cultural stories worth reading.
Use it alongside the Emoji Keyboard. The Emoji Keyboard lets you browse and copy emojis quickly. Combine it with the translator for a research workflow: browse with the keyboard, analyze with the translator.
Check keywords, not just the name. The keyword list reveals the full range of meanings an emoji carries. The 💙 blue heart, for example, has keywords spanning "blue," "heart," "trust," and "harmony" depending on the language — a richer picture than the primary name alone.
Reference it for accessibility writing. When writing alt text or ARIA labels for emoji in web content, the CLDR tts name is the standard to cite. The translator gives you that label across all 15 locales instantly.
Related Tools
The Emoji Translator is one of six interactive tools on EmojiFYI. Pair it with the Emoji Keyboard to browse, copy, and analyze emoji characters in one workflow. Understanding emojis as a multilingual system — rather than a universal picture language — changes how you use and build with them.