LamottevsLaporteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“Lamotte” and “Laporte” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,868
“Lamotte” frequency rank
#19,579
“Laporte” frequency rank
59447
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Lamotte Laporte
Definition Nom de famille. Nom de famille.

Where the eye mixes Lamotte and Laporte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Lamotte and Laporte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
Lamotte
7 ch
Laporte

Look-alike desk: Lamotte vs Laporte

A purely visual mix-up. Lamotte (\la.mɔt\) and Laporte (\la.pɔʁt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59447, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Lamotte is recorded at frequency rank #39,868, classified as aname, pronounced \la.mɔt\. Laporte is at rank #19,579, tagged as aname, pronounced \la.pɔʁt\.

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 59447, this pair ranks #103,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Lamotte vs Laporte

Shared letters: aelot. Private to "Lamotte": m. Private to "Laporte": pr.

"Lamotte" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "Laporte" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lamottealmotte · lammotte · lamote · lamotet · lamtote · laomtte · llamotte · lmaotte
  • Laportealporte · laoprte · laporet · laporrte · laportte · lapotre · lapporte · laprote

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Lamotte" for "Laporte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\la.mɔt\ versus \la.pɔʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Lamotte" or "Laporte"?
"Laporte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,579 in our French list, against #39,868 for "Lamotte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Lamotte" and "Laporte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Lamotte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Laporte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Lamotte" and "Laporte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lamente vs Lamotte". 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 #103,078 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