name
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "name", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "name" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "name" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
name is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any nounal word or phrase which indicates a particular person, place, class, or thing. Pronounced /neɪm/. It ranks #220 in English word frequency. Often confused with ne and nm.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | name |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /neɪm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #220 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for name is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /neɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #220 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for name, with forms such as "anme", "naem", and "namme". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ne", "nm", "nap", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *h₁nómn̥ Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ Proto-Germanic *namô Proto-West Germanic *namō Old English nama Middle English name English name From Middle English name, nome, from Old English nama, noma, from Proto-West Germanic *namō, from… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is name, spelled N-A-M-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any nounal word or phrase which indicates a particular person, place, class, or thing.
- 2A reputation.
- 3An abusive or insulting epithet.
- 4A person (or legal person).
- 5Those of a certain name; a race; a family.
- 6An authority; a behalf.
- 7An identifier, generally a unique string of characters.
- 8An investor in Lloyd's of London bearing unlimited liability.
Etymology
PIE word *h₁nómn̥ Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ Proto-Germanic *namô Proto-West Germanic *namō Old English nama Middle English name English name From Middle English name, nome, from Old English nama, noma, from Proto-West Germanic *namō, from Proto-Germanic *namô (“name”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ (“name”). Cognates Germanic Cognates: Yola naame, name, naume (“name”), North Frisian Naam, neem, noome, nööm (“name”), Saterland Frisian Nome, Noome (“name”), West Frisian namme (“name”), Alemannic German Naame, namä, noame, nomu, nàmund (“name”), Cimbrian naamo, name, nåm (“name”), Dutch naam, name (“name”), German Nahme, Name (“name”), German Low German Naam (“name”), Luxembourgish Numm (“name”), Mòcheno nu'm (“name”), Vilamovian noma (“name”), Yiddish נאָמען (nomen, “name”), Danish, Faroese and Norwegian Bokmål navn (“name”), Icelandic nafn (“name”), Norwegian Nynorsk nabn, namn (“name”), Swedish namn (“name”), Gothic 𐌽𐌰𐌼𐍉 (namō, “name”). Indo-European Cognates: Latin nōmen (“name”) (whence Spanish nombre (“name”)), Russian имя (imja, “name”), Ashkun nām (“name”), Kamkata-viri nom, num (“name”), Prasuni nom, nëmë (“name”), Waigali nām (“name”), Sanskrit नामन् (nā́man, “name”). Possible cognates outside of Indo-European include Finnish nimi (“name”) and Hungarian név (“name”). Doublet of nomen and noun.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: anme,naem,namme,nmae,nname
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for name
Misspelling Variants of "name"
Frequency rank: #220 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: