jovsJohnWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: jo is a pronoun, John is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“jo” is a pronoun and “John” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,897
“jo” frequency rank
#898
“John” frequency rank
7795
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jo John
Definition eu prenome masculino, equivalente ao português João

Letter map: jo vs John

Shared letters muted; letters that set jo and John apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
jo
4 ch
John

Grammar separator: jo vs John

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: jo is apronoun and Johnanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “jo” sits inside “John”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7795, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jo is recorded at frequency rank #6,897, classified as apron, pronounced /ju/, /ʒu/. John is at rank #898, tagged as anoun.

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 7795, this pair ranks #66,252 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of jo vs John

Shared letters: jo. Private to "jo": -. Private to "John": hn.

"jo" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "John" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Johnjhon · jjohn · johhn · johnn · jonh · ojhn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "jo" and "John" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "jo" is a pronoun and "John" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "jo" or "John" show up more?
"John" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #898 in our Portuguese list, against #6,897 for "jo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "jo" and "John".

  • Full dictionary entry for "jo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "John" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,252 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jo" and "John" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jed vs jo". 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 #66,252 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list