HaanvshamaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Haan is a name, hama is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Haan” is a name and “hama” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,098
“Haan” frequency rank
#44,666
“hama” frequency rank
77764
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Haan hama
Definition eine Stadt in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland Eimer, Schüssel

Letter map: Haan vs hama

Shared letters muted; letters that set Haan and hama apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Haan (CVVC) and hama (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
Haan
4 ch
hama

Role in the sentence - Haan and hama

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Haan is aname and hamaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77764, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Haan is recorded at frequency rank #33,098, classified as aname, pronounced [haːn]. hama is at rank #44,666, tagged as anoun.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 77764, this pair ranks #253,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Haan vs hama

Shared letters: ah. Private to "Haan": n. Private to "hama": m.

"Haan" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "hama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Haan ← ahan · haann · hhaan
  • hama ← ahma · haam · hamma · hhama · hmaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Haan" for "hama" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Haan" is a name and "hama" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Haan" or "hama" show up more?
"Haan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,098 in our German list, against #44,666 for "hama". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "Haan" and "hama". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Haan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hama" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #253,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Haan" and "hama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hama vs haze". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #253,454 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list