Etymology of a name of the letter ß : “scharfes s” The name “Eszett” is just a combination of the names of the letters s and z : “Es” and “Zett” But I don’t really like this name because the modern German ß is usually transliterated as ss rather than as sz The other name: “scharfes S” ”Scharf-S”, translates as “sharp s”
Why is »ß« substituted with »ss« rather than »sz«? The letter ß is called Eszett, literally meaning s z However, when the letter is not available (or when a word is in all caps), ß is almost always substituted by the digraph ss rather than sz (e g