Paul
[paʊ̯l]
The verdict
“Paul” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #1,237 in German word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #1,237
- frequency rank, German
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - deutscher Familienname
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Paul |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | [paʊ̯l] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,237 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Paul” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for Paul is 4 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [paʊ̯l]. Corpus data places it at rank #1,237 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "deutscher Familienname".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for Paul, with forms such as "apul", "palu", and "paull". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Pu", "Pol", "PUR", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct German form is Paul, spelled P-A-U-L.
Definition
- 1deutscher Familienname
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apul,palu,paull,ppaul,pual
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Paul - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “Paul”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is P-A-U-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [paʊ̯l] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Pu” - see the side-by-side comparison. Paul vs Pu
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.