The Star Chamber

All the letters of the alphabet have names. They also each represent certain sounds. These two things are not the same - for example, the letter ‘B’ is named bee; the sound it represents is buh, or something like it. Sometimes the name of the later is very similar to the sound it is used to represent (ess, ‘S’, for example) - but sometimes they are very different (as in aitch, ‘H’, which is sounded as breathy heh) and it’s important to be aware that a letter’s name and the sound it represents are separate things - not least because the name can vary when the sound remains the same (zed/zee for instance).

Because of this, letters themselves can sometimes be difficult nouns to specify in written English. It’s common to simply represent letters using their character - A, B, C, D, etc. I recommend people avoid using this as a standard. I personally always use the letter’s proper name, and I think this is highly preferable. There are instances where we use characters to represent something other than the letter or the phonetic sound that the letter represents - for instance, when describing a group of imaginary people we refer to Man A, Woman B, Child C, and so on. Here we’re just using the characters as representative of different individuals, we’re not using the character ‘B’ to represent the letter bee (it’s proper name) or the sound it makes (buh).

Using the names of letters, rather than using their character is a shorthand, allows us to distinguish between these uses and, in some cases, prevent confusion. Consider the following sentence:

Six children were learning the alphabet. Children A and B had already got all the way ess, Child C was stuck on em, while Children D, E and F had only got to aitch.

Imagine that sentence with only characters used:

Six children were learning the alphabet. Children A and B had already got the way to s, Child C was stuck on m, while Children D, E and F had only got to h.

Even using upper and lower case characters to differentiate, as I have here, the potential for confusion is clear. Instances where this is a problem might seem few and far between, but it’s much better to apply a standard just in case, and since such a simple one exists, why not use it? Much better to always refer to letters by their proper name.

List of Letter Names
This standard - of describing the letters always by name - is, unfortunately, not common, and many people may be unfamiliar with the actual names of the letters (or at least the correct spelling and plurals of those names). Below is a chart listing each letter of the alphabet with its upper and lower case characters, singular name and plural name.

I will say that some of these names are somewhat obscure, and correct or accepted spellings for these words tend to vary more than they do for other words in the English language. You may have come across alternative spellings for some of the letters - use whichever you wish. I’ve simply presented my own chosen spellings here (along with a couple of obvious variants). It doesn’t really matter which spelling you use, so long as it’s consistent, and these are the ones I have personally chosen.

As a rule, you’ll see that vowels are always spelled in the singular using only their character; with consonants this is never the case. The plurals of vowels are tricky, since adding -s to them (as usually indicates a plural) happens to create several common English words (as, is, us). Where there isn’t a commonly accepted plural of a vowel, I’ve therefore opted to use the versions with apostrophes, since this isn’t a spelling that can be confused with other words in common usage.

Character	Name (singular)	Name (plural)
Aa	a	a’s
Bb	bee	bees
Cc	cee	cees
Dd	dee	dees
Ee	e	ees
Ff	eff	effs
Gg	gee	gees
Hh	aitch	aitches	(most English dialects)
	haitch	haitches	(variant in some English dialects)
Ii	i	i’s
Jj	jay	jays
Kk	kay	kays
Ll	ell	ells
Mm	em	ems
Nn	en	ens
Oo	o	oes
Pp	pee	pees
Qq	cue	cues
Rr	ar	ars
Ss	ess	esses	es- (in compounds, as in es-bend)
Tt	tee	tees
Uu	u	u’s
Vv	vee	vees
Ww	double-u	double-u’s
Xx	ex	exes
Yy	wye	wyes
Zz	zed	zeds	(British English & most other dialects)
	zee	zees	(US English)
	izzed	izzeds	(Some Asian-English dialects)

Written Characters
When specifically referring to the character (i.e., the written form of the letter only, with no connection to its associated sound), it’s acceptable to simply use the character, for instance:

…the road forked out into a ‘Y’…

This is because in doing so, you’re only referring to the shape of the character, not its properties as a letter of the alphabet, and I think representing that with the orthographic character is perfectly sensible. When doing so, however, I use the convention of placing the character within quotes so that the distinction is clear, and I always use the upper case form of the character (unless, and this would be rare, it happens to be an instance specifically describing the shape of the lower case letter). Where the word is a compound, quotes are omitted, though the same principle of using the character applies, so therefore, T-shirt, U-turn.