HopkinsvshoppingConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#8,437
“Hopkins” frequency rank
#16,490
“hopping” frequency rank
24927
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hopkins hopping
Definition An English, Irish and Welsh surname originating as a patronymic. hop picking, the practice of picking hops; for Londoners a holiday period working in the hop gardens of Kent.

Letter map: Hopkins vs hopping

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hopkins and hopping apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. Hopkins and hopping follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
Hopkins
7 ch
hopping

Part-of-speech tell for Hopkins / hopping

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hopkins is aname and hoppinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24927, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hopkins is recorded at frequency rank #8,437, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈhɑp.kɪnz/. hopping is at rank #16,490, tagged as anoun.

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 24927, this pair ranks #398,251 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hopkins vs hopping

Shared letters: hinop. Private to "Hopkins": ks. Private to "hopping": g.

"Hopkins" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "hopping" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hopkins ← hhopkins · hokpins · hopikns · hopkinns · hopkinss · hopkisn · hopkkins · hopknis
  • hopping ← hhopping · hopipng · hoppign · hoppingg · hoppinng · hoppnig · hpoping · ohpping

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Hopkins" for "hopping" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hopkins" is a name and "hopping" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Hopkins" vs "hopping" - which ranks higher?
"Hopkins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,437 in our English list, against #16,490 for "hopping". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Hopkins" and "hopping".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hopkins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hopping" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #398,251 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hopkins" and "hopping" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heaping vs hopping". 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 #398,251 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