HammvshanWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,839
“Hamm” frequency rank
#7,925
“han” frequency rank
40764
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hamm han
Definition An English topographic surname for someone who lived in an area of flat land near a river; or a habitational name from several places with the same name in southern England. plural simple present of have

Letter map: Hamm vs han

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hamm and han apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Hamm
3 ch
han

Role in the sentence - Hamm and han

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hamm is aname and hanaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40764, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hamm is recorded at frequency rank #32,839, classified as aname. han is at rank #7,925, tagged as averb, pronounced /hæn/.

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 40764, this pair ranks #264,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hamm vs han

Shared letters: ah. Private to "Hamm": m. Private to "han": n.

"Hamm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "han" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hammahmm · hhamm · hmam

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hamm" and "han" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hamm" is a name and "han" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Hamm" or "han" show up more?
"han" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,925 in our English list, against #32,839 for "Hamm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Hamm" and "han". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hamm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "han" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hamm" and "han" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hamm vs hammy". 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 #264,585 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