HammvshanWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Hamm is a name, han is an onomatopoeia, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Hamm” is a name and “han” is an onomatopoeia - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,799
“Hamm” frequency rank
#8,553
“han” frequency rank
55352
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hamm han
Definition Quartier de la ville de Luxembourg. Exclamation exprimant le cri sourd et guttural d’un homme fournissant un effort.

Letter map: Hamm vs han

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hamm and han apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Hamm
3 ch
han

Role in the sentence - Hamm and han

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Hamm is aname and hananonomatopoeia. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55352, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hamm is recorded at frequency rank #46,799, classified as aname. han is at rank #8,553, tagged as anonomatopoeia, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\ɑ̃\.

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 55352, this pair ranks #128,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hamm vs han

Shared letters: ah. Private to "Hamm": m. Private to "han": n.

"Hamm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "han" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hammahmm · hhamm · hmam

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hamm" and "han" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hamm" is a name and "han" an onomatopoeia, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Hamm" or "han" show up more?
"han" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,553 in our French list, against #46,799 for "Hamm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Hamm" and "han". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hamm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "han" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #128,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hamm" and "han" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hamm vs hummm". 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 #128,006 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