How many letters are in the Finnish alphabet?

29. The basic Latin A–Z gives 26, and Finnish adds Å, Ä, and Ö at the end, after Z. Note that several of the 26, such as b, c, f, q, w, x, and z, occur mainly in loan words and foreign names rather than native Finnish vocabulary.

Why is Å in the alphabet if it is rarely used?

Å, called ruotsalainen oo or 'the Swedish o', is part of the alphabet for historical reasons and appears almost only in Swedish loan words and place names such as Åland. It is included so Finnish and Swedish text can be sorted with one shared alphabet.

Are Ä and Ö accented versions of A and O?

No. In Finnish, ä and ö are independent letters with their own sounds, placed at the end of the alphabet, not accented forms of a and o. Treating them as variants leads to wrong sorting and changed word meanings.

What are the Finnish names of the letters?

Vowels are named by lengthening the sound (a is 'aa', o is 'oo'), while many consonants follow patterns like 'äl/ällä' for L and 'än/ännä' for N. The reference lists the spoken name beside each letter so you can recite the alphabet.

Does the reference need an internet connection?

No. The alphabet data is built into the tool, so it works fully offline in your browser. The filter and the copy buttons run locally with nothing sent to a server.

Finnish Alphabet Reference

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This tool is a complete reference to the Finnish alphabet — all 29 letters with their names, Unicode code points, and notes on how each is used.

How it works

The Finnish alphabet is the basic Latin A–Z plus three letters at the end:

… x  y  z  å  ä  ö

Each entry shows the uppercase and lowercase forms, the Finnish letter name (for example aa for A and öö for Ö), and the Unicode code points such as U+00E4 for lowercase ä. A usage note marks which letters are core Finnish and which — b, c, f, q, w, x, z, and å — appear chiefly in loan words and foreign names. Use the filter box to search by letter, name, or keyword, and click any letter to copy it.

Tips and notes

Two points trip people up. First, ä and ö are real letters, not accents, so they sort after z, not next to a and o — see the Finnish alphabetical-sort tool for the consequence. Second, å is genuinely rare in Finnish and signals a Swedish-origin word or name. When you need an ASCII-only form for a URL or filename, fold these letters with the Finnish diacritic remover.