meinevsMelinaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: meine is a unknown, Melina is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meine” is an unknown and “Melina” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#106
“meine” frequency rank
#44,791
“Melina” frequency rank
44897
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meine Melina
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum des Possessivpronomens mein weiblicher Vorname

Where the eye mixes meine and Melina

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. meine runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against Melina's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
meine
6 ch
Melina

Why the eye confuses meine with Melina

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meine is [ˈmaɪ̯nə] while Melina is [meˈliːna]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (unknown vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44897, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meine is recorded at frequency rank #106, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈmaɪ̯nə]. Melina is at rank #44,791, tagged as aname, pronounced [meˈliːna].

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 44897, this pair ranks #1,371,097 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meine vs Melina

Shared letters: eimn. Private to "meine": -. Private to "Melina": al.

"meine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Melina" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meine ← emine · meien · meinne · menie · mmeine
  • Melina ← emlina · meilna · melian · melinna · mellina · melnia · mleina · mmelina

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meine" for "Melina" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meine" is an unknown and "Melina" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "meine" vs "Melina" - which ranks higher?
"meine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #106 in our German list, against #44,791 for "Melina". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "meine" and "Melina" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Melina" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,371,097 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meine" and "Melina" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Melina vs Messina". 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 #1,371,097 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