French accent names and punctuation marks

Read this list to learn French accent names, punctuation marks and French special characters.

French accent names

It’s a good idea to learn the name of French accent names for situations where you need to spell out an address or any French word. The only letters that can have an accent mark in French are: a, e, i, o and u.

Accent aigu (acute accent) is used exclusively on letter e. You’ll never find an acute accent on the letter i in French like you would in Spanish.

é
un accent aigu

acute accent
j’ai mangé (I ate), je suis fatigué (I’m tired)

è à ù
un accent grave

grave accent
Où es-tu ? (Where are you?) Je suis à la maison (I’m home)

â ê î ô û
un accent circonflexe

circumflex
la tête (head), le coût (cost), un diplôme (diploma), un hôte (host), un gîte (bed and breakfast place)

ë ï ü
un tréma

diaeresis
du maïs (corn), Noël (Christmas), ambigü (ambiguous)

The letter e with accent

In French, the letter e never bears an accent mark when e is followed by

• a doubled letter
• an x

For instance, you’ll write:

Je m’appelle Tom (My name is Tom). Un exercice (an exercise). Un accent circonflexe (circumflex accent).

The letter e with accent is not pronounced the same as e without an accent.

For instance:

La marche (walking) sounds not the same as Le marché (market).

The letters a, i, o and u with accents

The letters a, i, o and u never bear acute accent. A grave or circumflex accent on a, i, o or u doesn’t modify the sound of the word.

For instance, all occurrences of a in the following sentence sound the same.

Il a mangé des pâtes à la tomate. (He ate tomato pasta)

Diaresis

In French, a diaresis accent (2 dots over a letter) indicates that the letter should be pronounced separately.

maïs (corn) is pronounced as two syllables whereas mais (but) is one syllable only. Another well known French word with a diaresis is Noël (Christmas).

Diaresis marks are a lot less common than other French accent marks.

Punctuation marks in French

Notice how French use different opening and closing quotes than Americans.

«
des guillemets ouvrants

” opening quotes

»
des guillemets fermants

” closing quotes

…
des points de suspension (trois petits points)

ellipsis

?
un point d’interrogation

question mark

!
un point d’exclamation

exclamation point

‘
une apostrophe

apostrophe

,
une virgule

comma

;
un point-virgule

semicolon

.
un point

period

:
un deux-points

colon

(
une parenthèse ouvrante

open parenthesis

)
une parenthèse fermante

close parenthesis

{
une accolade ouvrante

open brace

}
une accolade fermante

close brace

[
des crochets ouvrants

open bracket

]
des crochets fermants

close bracket

–
un trait d’union ou tiret du 6 (in reference to the keyboard key on a French keyboard)

hyphen

French Special characters

€
le symbole euro

euro

º
un degré

degree

ç
un c cédille

cedilla

œ
un o-e entrelacé (un e-dans-l’o)

ligature of o and e
un cœur, une sœur

æ
un a-e entrelacé (un e-dans-l’a)

ligature of a and e
curriculum vitæ

@
une arobase

at sign

%
un pourcentage

percent sign

#
un croisillon (ou carré)

pound sign

♯
un dièse

sharp sign

&
et commercial (une esperluette)

ampersand

\
une barre oblique inversée

backslash

|
une barre verticale

vertical bar

=
le signe égal

equal sign

/
une barre oblique

slash

<
plus petit que

less than

>
plus grand que

greater than

^
un caret

caret

+
le signe plus

plus sign

_
un tiret bas

underscore

*
un astérisque

asterisk

n^o
un numéro

number

§
un paragraphe

section sign

±
plus ou moins

plus-minus sign

etc
et cetera

and so on

French names with accents

Many French names have accents. Here’s a few French boy names with accents:

• Hervé
• André
• Maël
• Noé
• Jérémie
• Gaëtan
• Frédéric
• Cédric
• Aurélien
• Rémi

Some French girl names with accents:

• Hélène
• Stéphanie
• Béatrice
• Noémie
• Élodie
• Valérie
• Cécile
• Céline
• Véronique
• Chloé

If you are using a qwerty keyboard, read Type French accents without a French keyboard to learn key combinations on a Mac or a PC.