While English speakers call “@” the “at” symbol, other nations are far more clever.
“Send : The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home” by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe provides this entertaining list of what the ”at symbol” is called in other nations.
- Czech (Czech Republic): Závinaĉ, which means a herring wrapped around a pickle.
- Danish: Snabel-a, “elephant’s trunk,”
- Dutch: Apestaartje, “little monkey’s tail,” though sometimes apeklootje, a rude word for another part of the monkey’s anatomy.
- Hebrew: Shablul or Shablool, “snail” or Shtrudl, “strudel.”
- Hugarian: Kukac, “worm or maggot.”
- Italian: Chiocciola, “Snail.”
- Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan): Xiao Lao Shu, “little mouse,” or Lao Shu Hao, “mouse sign.”
- Russian: Sobachka, “doggie.”
- Thai: Ai tua yiukyiu, “wiggling worm.”
In India, it’s called “at the rate,” although I’m not sure where that came from.
In Germany it’s “Klammeraffe” (spider monkey).
In dutch the symbol is called ‘apenstaartje’, but most people say ‘at’. It’s comparable with the ampersand. In a normal text you say ‘and’, but that’s not the name of the symbol.
In German: Klammeraffe. Which means something like ‘the clutching monkey’
In Poland we call it “małpa”, which just means “monkey”.
In Portuguese : “Arroba”
In Finnish it’s called “Miukumauku” which more or less means the sound that cat makes. Nothing to do any body parts of a cat but the sound, for some reason.