Cursive Letters (Script Text)

Unicode has two complete cursive alphabets. Script is the lighter one, 𝒜 ℬ 𝒞 𝒟 ℰ ℱ 𝒢 ℋ ℐ 𝒥 𝒦 ℒ ℳ 𝒩 𝒪 𝒫 𝒬 ℛ 𝒮 𝒯 𝒰 𝒱 𝒲 𝒳 𝒴 𝒵 with small letters 𝒶 𝒷 𝒸 𝒹 ℯ 𝒻 ℊ 𝒽 𝒾 𝒿 𝓀 𝓁 𝓂 𝓃 ℴ 𝓅 𝓆 𝓇 𝓈 𝓉 𝓊 𝓋 𝓌 𝓍 𝓎 𝓏. Bold script is the heavier one, 𝓐 𝓑 𝓒 𝓓 𝓔 𝓕 𝓖 𝓗 𝓘 𝓙 𝓚 𝓛 𝓜 𝓝 𝓞 𝓟 𝓠 𝓡 𝓢 𝓣 𝓤 𝓥 𝓦 𝓧 𝓨 𝓩 and 𝓪 𝓫 𝓬 𝓭 𝓮 𝓯 𝓰 𝓱 𝓲 𝓳 𝓴 𝓵 𝓶 𝓷 𝓸 𝓹 𝓺 𝓻 𝓼 𝓽 𝓾 𝓿 𝔀 𝔁 𝔂 𝔃. The grid above shows them in alphabet order, capital over small, so you can spell a word letter by letter or take the whole row.

Both alphabets live in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block, added in Unicode 3.1 in 2001 for mathematicians, who use 𝒜 for a set of sets, ℒ for the Laplace transform and ℱ for the Fourier transform. The internet found them soon after as the only cursive letters that can be pasted anywhere, and they became the standard output of every cursive text generator. Unicode's own charts note that the script style is also called calligraphic, so a 'calligraphy font' generator gives you these same characters.

There are no cursive digits. Unicode gives bold, double-struck, sans-serif and monospace numbers (see Number Symbols), but no script 0 to 9, so a cursive name with a number in it keeps a plain digit: 𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪 2000. The same goes for punctuation and accented letters: there is no script é or ñ, so names such as José mix styles (𝒥𝓸𝓼é) or drop the accent.

Why ℬ ℰ ℱ ℋ ℐ ℒ ℳ ℛ and ℯ ℊ ℴ look different

Thirteen script letters are older than the rest. ℬ ℰ ℱ ℋ ℐ ℒ ℳ ℛ and ℯ ℊ ℴ, together with ℓ and ℘, sit in the Letterlike Symbols block, which dates from the first versions of Unicode in the early 1990s, because physicists and engineers already used them as signs: ℋ is the Hamiltonian, ℒ the Lagrangian, ℰ electromotive force, ℛ the Riemann integral, ℓ a length or a litre, ℘ the Weierstrass elliptic function. When the full mathematical alphabets arrived in 2001, Unicode did not encode those letters a second time, so the script alphabet has holes at B, E, F, H, I, L, M, R and at e, g, o, and this page puts each older sign in its alphabet place.

In most fonts they match their neighbours closely enough; in some they are a touch lighter or more upright, which is why a cursive name occasionally looks like it has one letter from a different pen. Two of them are not what they seem: ℘ is officially 'script capital P' but is drawn as a small curly p and used only for the Weierstrass function, so the true cursive P is 𝒫, and ℓ is a second script l beside 𝓁, kept for the litre and for formulas. The bold script alphabet was encoded whole in 2001 and has no holes at all: 𝓐 to 𝓩 and 𝓪 to 𝔃 are one unbroken run, which is one reason generators and bio-styling apps lean on the bold set.

Font makers also disagree on what 'script' means. Microsoft's Cambria Math and most Windows fonts draw the capitals in a chancery hand (narrow, pointed, like Zapf Chancery), while the Unicode charts and the STIX fonts draw roundhand (the wide looping copperplate of wedding invitations). Unicode 14.0 added variation sequences so a document can ask for one or the other, but phones and social apps ignore them: the same 𝒜 can look pointed on a Windows laptop and swirly on an iPhone.

Cursive text for Instagram, TikTok, Discord and tattoos

Cursive letters work wherever a text field accepts Unicode: an Instagram display name and bio, Instagram captions and comments, X posts and display names, a TikTok nickname and bio, a Discord display name or server name, WhatsApp and Telegram names and statuses, Facebook posts, YouTube titles and comments, Steam and Roblox display names, and documents in Word, Google Docs and Pages. They do not work in handles and usernames that allow only plain letters, digits, dots and underscores, so @𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪 is refused on Instagram, TikTok, X and Discord, while 𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪 as a display name is fine. Email addresses and web addresses are plain too.

Whether they display depends on the reader's device having a maths font. Current iPhones, Android phones, Macs and Windows PCs show all 108 characters on this page; very old Android versions and some smart TVs and game consoles show empty boxes, and the two ampersands 🙰 🙱 are the most likely to drop out, since they come from a dingbat set that few fonts cover. If something you paste turns into boxes, the recipient's font is missing, not your text.

The look suits names, quotes and wedding or anniversary text (see Wedding Emoji and Anniversary Emoji for the emoji that go with them), and people type cursive here to preview a tattoo or an engraving: paste the word, enlarge it, and you have a quick impression of a script lettering. Keep in mind that a tattoo artist works from a font or a hand-drawn design, not from Unicode, so use the preview to settle on the word and the weight, then choose a real script face. For other fancy alphabets, Gothic Letters, Double-Struck Letters, Bold Letters and Italic Letters have their own pages, and Fancy Symbols and Aesthetic Symbols have the flourishes ❦ ✿ ⋆ that frame a cursive name.

Accessibility, search and copy: what cursive letters cost

Cursive text is a trade. A screen reader does not see a word: VoiceOver, TalkBack and NVDA read 𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪 letter by letter as 'mathematical bold script capital L, mathematical bold script small u, …' or skip it entirely, so a blind follower hears noise where your name should be. Keep cursive to a name or a short phrase and leave the sentences plain, and never put the only copy of important information (a date, a price, a link) in cursive letters.

Search also treats them as different characters. Searching 'Luna' will not find 𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪 in a caption, a hashtag made of cursive letters is a different hashtag, and a cursive word may not be spell-checked, translated or read aloud correctly. On the other hand, text filters and copy-protection that look for plain words miss cursive, which is why it appears in spam and why some platforms strip it from certain fields.

Copying is the easy part: tap any letter above to copy it, or copy a ready-made word from the combos below and edit it. In Word you can type the code and press Alt + X (1D4D0 Alt + X gives 𝓐), and in LaTeX \mathcal{A} and \mathscr{A} give the chancery and roundhand styles, but for a name the fastest way is to spell it from the grid. There is no keyboard layout for cursive letters on any phone; every 'cursive keyboard' app simply swaps letters for these characters, the same way a generator does.