Emoji
Emoji Letters: Regional Indicators, ๐ ฐ๏ธ and the Alphabet in Emoji
ยท 4 min read
There is no complete emoji alphabet, but you can spell almost anything with three tricks: regional indicator letters (๐ฆ to ๐ฟ), the handful of letter buttons such as ๐ ฐ๏ธ ๐ ฑ๏ธ ๐ พ๏ธ ๐ ฟ๏ธ, and look-alike emojis whose shape resembles a letter, like โก for Z or ใฝ๏ธ for M. Emojar's letter-shaped emoji table shows all three for every letter from A to Z, ready to copy.
Regional indicator letters
Unicode has 26 characters called regional indicator symbols, one for each letter of the Latin alphabet, from ๐ฆ (U+1F1E6) to ๐ฟ (U+1F1FF). On their own they look like a letter in a box. They exist for one job: two of them in a row form a country flag. ๐ซ followed by ๐ท is shown as ๐ซ๐ท, because FR is the ISO code for France.
That is both their strength and their trap. Spell a word with regional indicators and some pairs will merge into flags: "BE" becomes ๐ง๐ช (Belgium), "IT" becomes ๐ฎ๐น and "US" becomes ๐บ๐ธ. The fix is to put a space โ or an invisible zero-width space โ between the letters so the system can't pair them. Windows doesn't draw flags at all, so there the letters stay letters, while phones merge every valid pair.
Letter buttons: ๐ ฐ๏ธ ๐ ฑ๏ธ ๐ พ๏ธ ๐ ฟ๏ธ and friends
A few letters exist as real emoji "buttons", mostly for practical reasons:
- ๐ ฐ๏ธ ๐ ฑ๏ธ ๐ ๐ พ๏ธ โ blood types A, B, AB and O, from Japanese medical and dating culture.
- ๐ ฟ๏ธ โ parking.
- โ๏ธ โ a circled M, used for metro and subway signs.
- โน๏ธ โ information.
- ยฉ๏ธ ยฎ๏ธ โข๏ธ โ copyright, registered and trademark signs, which double as C, R and TM.
Squared words such as ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ and ๐ are useful for short labels too. Symbols like ๐ค (input Latin letters), ๐ (uppercase) and ๐ก (lowercase) show an "ABC" picture but can't spell anything else.
Look-alike emojis
For the remaining letters, the alphabet table uses shapes. Some are convincing and some need a little imagination:
| Letter | Look-alike emojis |
|---|---|
| A | ๐ ฐ๏ธ ๐ผ ๐ผ |
| C | ยฉ๏ธ ๐ ๐ฅ ๐งฒ |
| H | ๐ โ ๐ |
| O | ๐ พ๏ธ โญ ๐ช |
| S | ๐ฒ โก ๐ฐ |
| T | โ๏ธ ๐ด โ๏ธ |
| V | โ โ๏ธ โ ๐ฝ |
| X | โ โ๏ธ โ ๐ค |
| Y | โ๏ธ ๐ธ ๐ฑ |
| Z | โก ๐ค |
Look-alikes are fun for headlines, invitations and social posts. You will also see words like "๐ ฟ๏ธ๐ ฐ๏ธ๐๐๐", where only ๐ ฟ๏ธ and ๐ ฐ๏ธ are emojis โ ๐ ๐ ๐ are squared-letter symbols that many devices show as plain text. Either way, there is a cost, covered below.
Why emoji letters are bad for accessibility
Screen readers read each emoji by its name. A word spelled with look-alikes is read as a string of unrelated objects: โก๐ พ๏ธ๐ พ๏ธ becomes "high voltage, O button blood type, O button blood type". Regional indicators are read as "regional indicator symbol letter A" and so on. Search engines don't treat them as letters either, so a heading written this way can't be found by its word.
Use emoji letters for decoration around real text, not instead of it: "๐ Party tonight ๐" is readable; a word spelled entirely in squares and buttons is not. If you want styled letters that still behave like text in bios and posts, Unicode "fancy text" (bold, script, circled letters) is closer โ but it has the same screen-reader problem, so keep it short.
Finding emojis by first letter
A different "emoji alphabet" is simply every emoji sorted by its name. The AโZ list has a jump bar from A to Z and lists all 3,789 emojis by their official name โ handy when you remember that the one you want starts with "f" but not what it's called. The emoji list with details adds codepoints and Unicode versions for each one, and the Emoji Search finds them by meaning rather than spelling.
Practical tips
- Spelling with regional indicators: separate the letters with spaces, or check the result on a phone before posting โ accidental flags are easy to miss on a PC.
- Copying: click any emoji in the letter-shaped table to copy it; the regional indicator for each letter is listed next to the look-alikes.
- Designs and slides: for crisp letters in an image, download the emojis with Emoji to PNG instead of screenshotting text.
- Codes: paste any emoji into the Emoji Inspector to see its codepoints โ useful to check whether a "letter" is a regional indicator, a button or something else entirely.
Common questions
Is there an emoji for every letter? As a regional indicator, yes โ all 26. As a dedicated button, only A, B, O, P and M (plus AB). Everything else is a look-alike.
Why did my word turn into a flag? Two regional indicator letters next to each other form a flag if they match a country code. Add a space between them.
Can I use emoji letters in a username? Many sites accept them, but some strip or block them, and they make your name hard to search for or read aloud.