allaivsAllanWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#38,638
“allai” frequency rank
#16,799
“Allan” frequency rank
55437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature allai Allan
Definition Première personne de l’indicatif passé simple du verbe aller. Commune française, située dans le département de la Drôme.

Letter map: allai vs Allan

Shared letters muted; letters that set allai and Allan apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. allai (VCCVV) and Allan (VCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
allai
5 ch
Allan

Grammar separator: allai vs Allan

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: allai is averb and Allananame. On the page they differ by a single letter - i in “allai” becomes n in “Allan”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

allai is recorded at frequency rank #38,638, classified as averb, pronounced \a.le\. Allan is at rank #16,799, 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 55437, this pair ranks #127,458 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of allai vs Allan

Shared letters: al. Private to "allai": i. Private to "Allan": n.

"allai" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "Allan" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • allai ← alali · lalai
  • Allan ← alaln · allann · allna · lalan

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "allai" and "Allan" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "allai" is a verb and "Allan" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "allai" vs "Allan" - which ranks higher?
"Allan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,799 in our French list, against #38,638 for "allai". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "allai" and "Allan". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "allai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Allan" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #127,458 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "allai" and "Allan" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "allai vs allain". 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 #127,458 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list