YatesvsyesConfusable pair

Quick tell: Yates is a name, yes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Yates” is a name and “yes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,336
“Yates” frequency rank
#9,417
“yes” frequency rank
44753
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Yates yes
Definition Nom de famille. Oui d’un anglophone ou d’un pays anglophone.

Letter map: Yates vs yes

Shared letters muted; letters that set Yates and yes apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Yates runs 5 letters (VVCVC) against yes's 3 (VVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Yates
3 ch
yes

Part-of-speech tell for Yates / yes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Yates is aname and yesanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44753, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Yates is recorded at frequency rank #35,336, classified as aname. yes is at rank #9,417, tagged as anoun, pronounced \jɛs\.

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 44753, this pair ranks #208,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Yates vs yes

Shared letters: esy. Private to "Yates": at. Private to "yes": -.

"Yates" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC  ·  "yes" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Yates ← aytes · yaets · yatess · yatse · yattes · ytaes · yyates

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Yates" and "yes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Yates" is a name and "yes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Yates" or "yes"?
"yes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,417 in our French list, against #35,336 for "Yates". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Yates" vs "yes" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Yates" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "yes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #208,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Yates" and "yes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Yates vs Ypres". 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 #208,088 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