alienvsAlunWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#4,347
“alien” frequency rank
#47,459
“Alun” frequency rank
51806
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alien Alun
Definition A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration. A male given name from Welsh.

Letter map: alien vs Alun

Shared letters muted; letters that set alien and Alun apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
alien
4 ch
Alun

Role in the sentence - alien and Alun

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alien is anoun and Alunaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51806, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alien is recorded at frequency rank #4,347, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈeɪ.li.ən/. Alun is at rank #47,459, tagged as aname.

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 51806, this pair ranks #162,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alien vs Alun

Shared letters: aln. Private to "alien": ei. Private to "Alun": u.

"alien" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC  ·  "Alun" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alienailen · alein · alienn · allien · laien
  • Alunallun · alnu · alunn · auln · laun

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "alien" and "Alun" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alien" is a noun and "Alun" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "alien" vs "Alun" - which ranks higher?
"alien" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,347 in our English list, against #47,459 for "Alun". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "alien" and "Alun". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alien" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Alun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #162,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alien" and "Alun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "algo vs Alun". 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 #162,322 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list