personavspersonneTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,685
“persona” frequency rank
#149
“personne” frequency rank
28834
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature persona personne
Definition Masque porté par les acteurs dans l'Antiquité. Être humain considéré en tant qu’individu.

Where the eye mixes persona and personne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. persona runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against personne's 8 (CVCCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
persona
8 ch
personne

Visual trap between persona and personne

A purely visual mix-up. persona (\pɛʁ.so.na\) and personne (\pɛʁ.sɔn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

persona is recorded at frequency rank #28,685, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.so.na\. personne is at rank #149, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔn\.

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 28834, this pair ranks #320,385 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of persona vs personne

Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "persona": a. Private to "personne": -.

"persona" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "personne" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • personaeprsona · perosna · perrsona · persnoa · persoan · personna · perssona · pesrona
  • personneeprsonne · perosnne · perrsonne · persnone · persone · personen · perssonne · pesronne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "persona" and "personne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁ.so.na\ versus \pɛʁ.sɔn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "persona" or "personne"?
"personne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #149 in our French list, against #28,685 for "persona". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "persona" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "personne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,385 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "persona" and "personne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "persans vs persona". 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 #320,385 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