[korlja]

'sz' for 'ß' is sometimes used to make things roundtrip-proof in capslock, e.g. on military stencils. HTML calls it 'szlig'. Also, some use "Esszet" as the name of the character. But all are wrong in that ß isn't a ligature of s and z, it is a ligature of s and s. The shape of the character stems from the fact that in fractur writing and even some grotesk fonts, 's' at the end of a word was written 's', while 's' within a word was written 'ſ'. Thus the end of a word like Fuss was written Fuſs, giving a ligature of Fuß. No 'z' anywhere.

[kmm]

Originally ß arose as a ligature of s and z, or rather ſ and ʒ. In many older texts, or even current fonts, the second part of the ligature is indisputably a long-tailed ʒ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F

[seszett]

> some use "Esszet" as the name of the character

I believe the actual name is Eszett.

[wanderingstan]

Only “wrong” in light of current usage, but not historically.

By this measure, the English name of “W” would be wrong because it’s not actually a “double-U” but a “double-V”. But at the time of the letter’s formation, U and V were not yet separate letters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W

[jfk13]

The Swedes get this "right", and call it [ˈdɵ̂bːɛlˌveː].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_alphabet

[kaetemi]

In Dutch it's even more sane, the alphabet just goes V = vee, W = wee.

[wanderingstan]

Oh wow, didn’t know that!

[samatman]

French as well, although the elegance gained is quickly tarnished by calling y "Greek i".

[mzs]

I always thought that German z used to look something between Ꙁ & з. ʒ looks pretty close so ſз became ß but Latin transliteration rules were ss instead. At least that's what I was taught in German class.