MaryvstakingWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Mary is a name, taking is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Mary” is a name and “taking” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,536
“Mary” frequency rank
#47,767
“taking” frequency rank
52303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mary taking
Definition weiblicher Vorname Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs take

Letter map: Mary vs taking

Shared letters muted; letters that set Mary and taking apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. Mary runs 4 letters (CVCV) against taking's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Mary
6 ch
taking

Part-of-speech tell for Mary / taking

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mary is aname and takingaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mary is recorded at frequency rank #4,536, classified as aname, pronounced […]. taking is at rank #47,767, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 52303, this pair ranks #1,102,041 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Mary vs taking

Shared letters: a. Private to "Mary": mry. Private to "taking": giknt.

"Mary" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "taking" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Maryamry · marry · maryy · mmary · mray
  • takingatking · taikng · takign · takingg · takinng · takking · taknig · tkaing

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Mary" and "taking" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mary" is a name and "taking" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Mary" or "taking"?
"Mary" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,536 in our German list, against #47,767 for "taking". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Mary" and "taking".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mary" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "taking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,102,041 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mary" and "taking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs taking". 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 #1,102,041 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