# paternal vs Paterno

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### paternal
*adjective · IPA /pəˈtɜː.nəl/ · frequency rank #20,731*
Of or pertaining to one's father, his genes, his relatives, or his side of a family.

### Paterno
*name · frequency rank #47,249*
A surname from Italian.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/paternal-vs-paterno