The Doctrine

THE TIER SYSTEM

A simple philological rule: the more phonology the original language lets us recover, the richer the Unicode restoration. Greek names are measured by whether they preserve stress and length — the two features ancient Greek used to distinguish words. Every other tradition is measured by whether its restoration keeps the distinctive letters and diacritics that ASCII erases.

Dual-Tier · 3 names

Tier 1 · 592 names

Tier 2 · 332 names

See the Three Tiers Try the Converter

The Classification

Three Tiers of Restoration

Every Greek entry in the lexicon is classified by how many prosodic features its original spelling preserves.

Dual-Tier 3 names

´ + ¯ × ´ + ¯

Multiple Valid Restorations

The Greek original carries both stress and length, and history has handed down more than one defensible Unicode spelling. Each variant is a real restoration, not a stylistic alias.

Both acute stress and at least one long vowel
Multiple historically valid spellings
Each variant owns a real domain

Apóllōn Hekátē Níkē

Tier 1 592 entries

´ + ¯

Full Restoration

Every feature of the original phonology survives in the Unicode form. For Greek names, that means the original carries both stress and length, with one dominant scholarly spelling. For every other tradition, it means at least one distinctive letter or diacritic is preserved that ASCII would erase — a macron, a tone mark, an underdot, a þ or ð.

Greek: stress and length both preserved
Other traditions: ≥1 distinctive feature kept
The philologically faithful form of the name

Zeús Athénā Óðinn

Tier 2 332 entries

´ or ¯

Partial Restoration

Only one feature survives, or none. For Greek names, the original offers only stress, only length, or only a circumflex — the Unicode form preserves that single feature, the standard convention of LSJ, Cambridge, and Oxford editions. For other traditions, the faithful form happens to need no distinctive letters at all — what survives is the name itself.

Greek: one feature preserved, not both
Other traditions: no distinctive feature lost to ASCII
Still a defensible scholarly orthography

Ártemis Diónysos Baldr

At a Glance

How the Tiers Compare

Property	Dual-Tier	Tier 1	Tier 2
Greek has stress + length	Yes	Yes	No
Non-Greek keeps ≥1 distinctive feature	Varies	Yes	No
Multiple valid Unicode spellings	Yes	No	No
Both spellings live as domains	Yes	No	Varies
Layout badge	Dual-Tier pair	Tier 1	Tier 2

The Science

Two Marks, One System

Ancient Greek was a pitch-accent language. Words carried a melody and distinguished long vowels from short. Our tiers map these lost features to Unicode depth.

Stress

The acute (´) marks rising pitch on a short vowel. The circumflex (ˆ) combines stress and length on one syllable.

Ζεύς → Zeús

Ποσειδῶν → Poseidôn

Length

Greek distinguished long from short vowels. η and ω are always long; other long vowels are marked with macrons (¯).

Ἥρα → Hēra

Ἀφροδίτη → Aphrodítē

´ + ¯

Both Together

When Greek carries both features, the transliteration preserves the full scholarly orthography — every recoverable phonological detail.

Ἥφαιστος → Hēphaistos

Προμηθεύς → Promētheus

Tool

Live Punycode Converter

Type a Unicode domain to see its Punycode encoding.

Methodology

Scholarly Sources

Every restoration is grounded in established philological reference. We do not invent accents — we recover them.

LSJ

Liddell-Scott-Jones

The standard Greek-English lexicon. Our macron conventions follow LSJ practice.

Beekes

Beekes Etymological Dictionary

Indo-European etymology and reconstructed forms for Greek names.

Cambridge

Cambridge Greek Grammar

Standard reference for accentuation rules and vowel quantity.

Oxford

Oxford Classical Texts

Critical editions with full diacritical apparatus.

Faulkner

Faulkner's Egyptian Dictionary

For Egyptian names and transliteration conventions.

Smyth

Smyth Greek Grammar

The American standard for Greek accent and quantity.

Canonical

Why are the names spelled this way?

Every tier above is assigned by the same mechanical rulebook — restored stress, vowel length, and the transliteration conventions of each tradition, from Greek circumflexes to Egyptological alephs. Read it in full.

The Restoration Rulebook →