PauvspersonaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#49,946
“Pau” frequency rank
#26,569
“persona” frequency rank
76515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pau persona
Definition Stadt in Südfrankreich die Person, der Mensch

Letter map: Pau vs persona

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pau and persona apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Pau runs 3 letters (CVV) against persona's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Pau
7 ch
persona

Grammar separator: Pau vs persona

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pau is aname and personaanoun. On the page they differ by 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76515, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pau is recorded at frequency rank #49,946, classified as aname, pronounced […]. persona is at rank #26,569, tagged as anoun, 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 76515, this pair ranks #282,118 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pau vs persona

Shared letters: ap. Private to "Pau": u. Private to "persona": enors.

"Pau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "persona" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • persona ← eprsona · perosna · perrsona · persnoa · persoan · personna · perssona · pesrona

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Pau" and "persona" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pau" is a name and "persona" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Pau" or "persona" show up more?
"persona" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,569 in our German list, against #49,946 for "Pau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "Pau" and "persona". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "persona" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,118 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pau" and "persona" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pau vs puzzles". 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 #282,118 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