Greek Alphabet Lookup

Enter a position from 1 to 24 to look up the Greek letter.

How it is calculated

The tool takes a position number and reads the matching entry from a fixed list of the 24 letters of the modern Greek alphabet, in the traditional order from alpha to omega. The index is letter = list[position], counting from 1. For each position it returns the upper-case and lower-case symbol together, then the English name of the letter. Only whole numbers from 1 to 24 are valid; 0, 25, negative numbers and decimals such as 3.5 return no result. Only the standard lower-case form is shown, so the word-final sigma (ς) is not listed. The names are English spellings, not the modern Greek pronunciation.

Worked example

Enter position 18. Counting along the alphabet: 1 alpha, 2 beta, 3 gamma, 4 delta, 5 epsilon, 6 zeta, 7 eta, 8 theta, 9 iota, 10 kappa, 11 lambda, 12 mu, 13 nu, 14 xi, 15 omicron, 16 pi, 17 rho, 18 sigma. The tool shows Σ σ with the name Sigma. In statistics the lower-case σ stands for standard deviation, and the capital Σ is the summation sign.

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Common mistakes

  • Entering 0 as the first letter; counting starts at 1, so alpha is position 1 and omega is 24.
  • Assuming the Latin alphabet order, for example expecting the 13th letter to be M; the Greek 12th is mu, and there are only 24 letters, not 26.
  • Mixing up look-alike letters: Greek capital rho (Ρ) looks like Latin P, and capital eta (Η) looks like H, but they are different characters.
  • Typing a decimal or a number above 24, which gives no result.

About this calculator

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters running from alpha (α, Α) to omega (ω, Ω), each with an upper-case and lower-case form and a standard English transliteration of its name. Looking a letter up by its position — 1st is alpha, 12th is mu, 24th is omega — is a quick way to confirm a symbol's name or spelling without hunting through a full alphabet chart.

Mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and statisticians rely on these letters constantly as variable and constant names (α for angles, μ for mean, σ for standard deviation, Δ for change, π for the circle constant), and students frequently need to double-check a letter's name and case while reading a formula or writing one out — the same alphabet also names the letters used in Greek fraternity and sorority organization names.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    Several capital Greek letters, such as Α, Β, Ε, Ζ, Η, Κ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Ρ, Τ and Χ, look just like Latin ones but are different characters, which matters if you paste them into code, a search box or a spreadsheet. The tool works by position only, so to find a letter's number you count along the alphabet. Lower-case mu (μ) is also the usual symbol for the micro prefix. Which letter were you trying to identify, and where did you see it?

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