walkedvsWelkerWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,187
“walked” frequency rank
#40,084
“Welker” frequency rank
42271
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature walked Welker
Definition simple past and past participle of walk A surname from German.

Letter map: walked vs Welker

Shared letters muted; letters that set walked and Welker apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. walked and Welker follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
walked
6 ch
Welker

Grammar separator: walked vs Welker

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: walked is averb and Welkeraname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42271, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

walked is recorded at frequency rank #2,187, classified as averb, pronounced /wɔːkt/. Welker is at rank #40,084, 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 42271, this pair ranks #250,749 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of walked vs Welker

Shared letters: eklw. Private to "walked": ad. Private to "Welker": r.

"walked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Welker" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • walkedawlked · wakled · walekd · walkde · walkedd · walkked · wallked · wlaked
  • Welkerewlker · wekler · welekr · welkerr · welkker · welkre · wellker · wleker

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "walked" for "Welker" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "walked" is a verb and "Welker" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "walked" or "Welker" show up more?
"walked" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,187 in our English list, against #40,084 for "Welker". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "walked" vs "Welker" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "walked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Welker" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,749 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "walked" and "Welker" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Welker vs wrecker". 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 #250,749 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