You see it every single day. Probably hundreds of times. It sits there in your email address, your Twitter handle, and your Slack mentions, just a little curled "a" inside a circle. But if you actually stop to think about it, what is at symbol called beyond just the sound we make when we read it aloud?
Most people just call it "the at sign." That's it. It’s functional, boring, and gets the job done. But if you’re a programmer, a linguist, or just someone who enjoys winning bar trivia, you know that this little character has a name list longer than a CVS receipt. Honestly, it’s kinda weird how one of the most essential pieces of digital infrastructure doesn't have a single, globally agreed-upon name that isn't just a description of its function.
The @ symbol is technically an "asperand" or an "ampersat" to some, though those terms feel a bit like people are trying too hard to make "fetch" happen. They never quite stuck. In the world of typography and formal coding, it’s often referred to as the commercial at. Why? Because before it was the backbone of the internet, it was a boring accounting tool. It meant "at the rate of." If you were buying five barrels of wine @ $10 each, that’s where the symbol lived. It was a productivity shortcut for people in dusty offices wearing green eyeshades.
The accidental invention of the modern at symbol
We really have Ray Tomlinson to thank for the fact that we're even asking what is at symbol called today. Back in 1971, Tomlinson was working on ARPANET, the precursor to the internet we know now. He needed a way to send a message from one computer to another, but he had a logic problem to solve. He needed a character that would separate the user's name from the name of the host computer.
The character had to be something that was already on the keyboard but was almost never used in names or common prose. He looked down at his Model 33 Teletype keyboard. There it was. The @ sign.
It was perfect.
It was rarely used, it was distinct, and—crucially—it already meant "at" in a commercial sense. So, "User @ Host" made perfect linguistic sense. It’s one of those rare moments in tech history where a choice made in ten seconds changed the way billions of humans communicate for the next fifty years. If Tomlinson had picked the percentage sign or the caret, we’d be talking about those instead. But he picked the @, and he basically rescued it from the scrapheap of accounting history.
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It has some pretty bizarre nicknames around the world
English speakers are kind of boring with this one. We just say "at." But if you travel, you’ll find that other cultures got way more creative. They didn't see a commercial unit of measurement; they saw animals.
In Italy, it’s chiocciolina, which means "little snail." You can see it, right? The spiral shell?
The Dutch call it apenstaartje, or "monkey’s tail." Honestly, that one feels the most accurate when you look at the way the stroke curls around the center. The Germans sometimes go with Klammeraffe, meaning "spider monkey," though they also use "at" because the internet is a great homogenizer of language.
In Hebrew, it’s shablul, which is also "snail." But then you get to the food. The Czechs call it zavináč, which is a rollmops—a pickled herring fillet rolled up around a savory filling. If you've ever seen a rollmops on a plate, the resemblance is actually uncanny. It’s fascinating that while we see a letter, half the world sees a snack or a zoo.
The "Commercial At" and its ancient roots
Wait, so where did it actually come from before the teletype machines? This is where historians start arguing. It wasn't just invented for accountants in the 1800s.
One theory, backed by Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile, suggests the symbol dates back to the 14th century. He found it in a 1536 letter written by a Florentine merchant named Francesco Lapi. In that context, the @ represented an amphora, which was a standard unit of volume based on the ceramic jars used to ship wine and oil in the Mediterranean. It makes sense—a circle representing the jar, with the "a" for amphora inside.
Other paleographers argue it’s a monk thing.
Medieval scribes were the masters of shortcuts. Writing by hand is exhausting. They would often combine letters to save time and parchment. Some believe the @ is a ligature of the Latin word ad (meaning to, at, or toward). The "d" would wrap around the "a" in a flourish, eventually merging into the single character we recognize today.
Why it almost disappeared from keyboards
There was a moment in the mid-20th century where the @ symbol almost went the way of the dodo. Early typewriters didn't always include it. Since it was mainly for specialized business accounting, many consumer models left it off to save space for more important things, like fractions or more common punctuation.
Even the first punch-card systems and early computer languages didn't always prioritize it. It wasn't until the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) standard was solidified in the 1960s that the @ symbol secured its permanent seat at the table. It was assigned code 64.
The linguistics of "at" in the age of social media
The way we use the symbol has shifted from a separator to a verb. We "at" people now. If you say "Don't @ me," everyone knows exactly what you mean. You're telling people not to come for you in the comments or mentions.
It’s a rare example of a punctuation mark becoming a functional part of speech. We don't really do that with the semicolon. You don't "semicolon" your friends. But the @ has this weird social power. It’s a digital finger tap on the shoulder.
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Technical specifics you probably didn't know
In programming, the @ symbol has a dozen different lives.
- In Python, it’s used for decorators, which are a way to modify the behavior of a function or class.
- In CSS, it’s used for "at-rules" like
@mediaor@font-face, which tell the browser how to handle specific conditions. - In Java, it marks annotations.
- In Excel, it’s used in formulas to refer to "this row" in a table.
Basically, if you’re a coder, your answer to what is at symbol called depends entirely on what language you spent your morning writing. To a web developer, it’s a media query trigger. To a data scientist, it’s a decorator.
What we should actually call it
If you want to be pedantic—and sometimes it’s fun to be pedantic—the most "correct" name in a modern context is the commercial at. That’s the name recognized by the Unicode Consortium, the group that decides which emojis and characters get to exist on your phone.
But "commercial at" is a mouthful.
Maybe we should lean into the "monkey tail" or the "snail." There’s something charming about the fact that our most high-tech communication tool is named after slow-moving garden creatures and pickled fish. It grounds the digital world in something tangible.
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Misconceptions about the @ symbol
A lot of people think the symbol was created specifically for the internet. That’s the biggest myth. As we've seen, it was around for centuries before a computer ever hummed to life.
Another misconception is that it’s used the same way everywhere. In some languages, the symbol is used as a gender-neutral ending in informal writing (like amig@s to cover both amigos and amigas), though that’s becoming less common with the rise of "x" or "e" as inclusive endings.
How to use this knowledge (The actionable part)
Now that you're an expert on what the @ symbol is called, here’s how to actually use this information in the real world:
- Check your typography: When designing a logo or a website, remember that the @ symbol's design varies wildly between fonts. Some are "open" and airy, while others are "closed" and look like a blob. Choose one that matches your brand's legibility.
- Use it for productivity: Most modern apps (Notion, Slack, Google Docs) use the @ symbol as a "universal trigger." Instead of clicking through menus to tag a person or link a file, just type @ and start typing the name. It’s the fastest way to navigate deep software.
- Keyboard shortcuts: If you’re traveling and using a foreign keyboard, the @ symbol is rarely where you think it is. On a UK keyboard, it’s often above the quotation mark. On a Spanish keyboard, you might need to hit
Alt Gr + Q. Knowing the "commercial at" exists across all these layouts will save you a headache at a luggage kiosk or an internet cafe. - Protect your privacy: Scrapers—bots that crawl the web for email addresses—look for the @ symbol. If you have to put your email on a public webpage, try writing it as "name [at] domain dot com." It’s a low-tech way to dodge a massive amount of spam.
The @ symbol is a survivor. It outlived the amphora, it outlived the ledger book, and it’ll probably outlive the current iteration of the internet. It’s the ultimate linguistic shapeshifter. Next time you type your email address, give a little nod to the monks, the merchants, and the snail-loving linguists who kept the symbol alive long enough for Ray Tomlinson to find it on his keyboard.
To get the most out of your digital tools, start by mastering the "mention" shortcuts in your primary workflow software. In Google Docs or Microsoft Loop, typing the @ symbol allows you to insert dates, dropdowns, and file links without ever touching your mouse. This is the modern evolution of the "commercial at"—turning a simple character into a high-speed navigation tool.