Names of Sports in Japanese

There are a lot of animes about sports, for some strange reason, and we all love to watch them showing the characters' hard work and sweat pay off while we're comfortably seated behind the screen. But what are those sports called in Japanese?

To begin with, the word "sports," or "sport," in Japanese is supootsu スポーツ. Most sports in japanese actually have two names. One written with katakana カタカナ, the other with kanji 漢字.

The difference between the usage of these two Japanese alphabets is that the katakana name will be a just a Japanese way of saying the English word, while the kanji name will be a more Japanese-esque word.

Sportsball

Sports that use a ball usually end with the word "-ball" in English. In Japanese, that ball suffix would be kyuu 球, the word tama 球 of same kanji meaning "ball." Here's a list of these ball sports:

• Badminton
  badominton バドミントン
  ukyuu 羽球
  (feather 羽 + ball 球)
• Baseball
  beesubooru ベースボール
  yakyuu 野球
  (field 野 + ball 球)
• Basketball
  basukettobooru バスケットボール
  basuke バスケ
  roukyuu 籠球
  (basket 籠 + ball 球)
• Billiards
  biriyaado ビリヤード
  doukyuu 撞球
• Cricket
  kuriketto クリケット
• Curling
  kaaringu カーリング
• Dodgeball
  dojjibooru ドッジボール
  doddibooru ドッヂボール
  dojji ドッジ
  hikyuu 避球
  (evade 避 + ball 球)
• Football & Soccer
  futtobooru フットボール
  sakkaa サッカー
  sakkabooru サッカーボール
  tamakeri 球蹴り
  shuukyuu 蹴球
  (kick 蹴 + ball 球)
• American Football
  amerikan futtobooru アメリカンフットボール
  amefuto アメフト
  gaikyuu 鎧球
  (armor 鎧 + ball 球)
• Gateball
  gettobooru ゲートボール
  monkyuu 門球
  (gate 門 + ball 球)
• Golf
  gorufo ゴルフ
  dakyuu 打球
  (hitting 打 + ball 球)
• Handball
  handobooru ハンドボール
  soukyuu 送球
  (send 送 + ball 球)
• Hockey
  hokkee ホッケー
  joukyuu 杖球
  (cane 杖 + ball 球)
• Ice Hockey
  aisu hokkee アイスホッケー
• Field Hockey
  fiirudo hokkee フィールドホッケー
• Roller Hockey
  rooraa hokkee ローラーホッケー
• Ping Pong
  pinpon ピンポン
  takkyuu 卓球
  (table 卓 + ball 球)
• Quidditch
  kuidicchi クィディッチ
• Tennis
  tenisu テニス
  teikyuu 庭球
  (courtyard 庭 + ball 球)
• Volleyball
  baree バレー
  bareebooru バレーボール
  haikyuu 排球
  (repel 排 + ball 球)
• Water Polo
  suikyuu 水球
  (water 水 + ball 球)

(some names in kanji retrived from supootsu kanji hyouki deeta - zatsugaku deetabanku スポーツ・漢字表記データ＞雑学データバンク)

Haikyuu Anime

Now, remember that anime about Volleyball, haikyuu ハイキュー?

It's an anime about Volleyball whose name, as you might have just learned, means literally "Volleyball."

I thought it was worth noting.

Fighting Sports

For names of fighting sports, see Names of Fighting Styles in Japanese.