French accent names and punctuation marks

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

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French accent names

It’s a good idea to learn the 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.
J’habite tout près.
I live close by.

â ê î ô û
Un accent circonflexe

Circumflex
La tête
The head
Le coût
The cost
Un diplôme
A diploma
Un hôte
A host
Un gîte
A bed and breakfast place

ë ï ü
Un tréma

Diaeresis
Du maïs
Some 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

Je m’appelle Tom. [no accent on letter e]
My name is Tom.

Un exercice [no accent on letter e]
An exercise

Un accent circonflexe [no accent on letter e]
A circumflex accent

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

La marche
A walk

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).

Du maïs
Corn

Mais bien sûr !
But of course!

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. You can read more about quotation marks in French writing conventions.

«
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

—
un tiret long ou tiret cadratin

em dash

French special characters

Learn the French names for French special characters. You’ll need to use them to give out your email address, your mailing address in France or a folder path.

€
le symbole euro

euro

º
un degré

degree

ç
un c cédille

cedilla
un garçon

œ
un o-e entrelacé (un e-dans-l’o)

ligature of o and e
un cœur

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

French names with special characters

There are very few French names with special characters such as a ligature or a cedilla. Here’s a couple of them.

• Françis (more often than not, spelled as Francis)
• François/Françoise
• Lætitia (also spelled Laetitia)

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.