Text decorations

Last checked November 2, 2026 by the TextEditor.com team

How to decorate a name in three layers

A decorated name is plain text built in layers. First the letters can change to a fancy style. Then each letter can get a mark above, below or through it. Last, symbols go around the whole name.

Each layer is made of real characters, so the look stays when you paste it into a profile, a game or a chat. The order matters. Marks attach to the letter in front of them, so they go on before the symbols are added.

For more letter styles, open the font converter. For marks on letters, with Zalgo sliders and a mark picker, see the strikethrough and underline generator. To put brackets around every single letter instead of the whole name, use the character wrapper.

Where ꧁, ༺ and 彡 come from

None of these symbols was made for names. Most come from writing systems of Asia, and Unicode added them so those languages could be typed. Gamers and fans then found that they look like wings, swirls and stars.

The Wikipedia article on the Javanese script shows ꧁ ꧂ in real Javanese texts, where they frame titles and sections. Paste any decoration below to see what each symbol is.

Why the right side is a mirror, not a copy

Many symbols come in pairs, a left one and a right one. ꧁ has a twin ꧂, and ༺ has a twin ༻. If you paste the same symbols on both sides, the right side points the wrong way. The tool fills in the right side as a mirror image: it reverses the order and swaps each symbol for its twin.

Some symbols look the same both ways, like ★ and ♡. Others, like 彡, have no twin at all. These keep their shape, and only their order is reversed. So ★彡 on the left becomes 彡★ on the right.

A few classic decorations break the rule on purpose. Shot through puts »»ᅳ on the left and ᅳ► on the right, so an arrow seems to fly through the name. These cards are marked by hand and keep their own right side.

How decorations count against name limits

Every symbol and every space counts. ꧁༺ and ༻꧂ with two spaces add 6 characters, so a name of 10 letters becomes 16. Fancy letters can count double. 𝓗 is one character on screen, but it is stored as two UTF-16 code units, and many apps count those. Marks count too: each underline or stroke on a letter is one more character.

Apps do not say which way they count. The bars in the tool count code points, so 𝓗 is one. If the name only fits when 𝓗 counts as one, the bar turns orange and shows the larger number too. For a game without a published limit, type the number its name box allows into "Your game's limit".

Why some apps show boxes instead of symbols

A device can only draw a character if one of its fonts has a picture for it. If none has, it shows an empty box, a question mark or nothing. People call the box "tofu". Your name is still saved right. It just can't be drawn on that screen.

Games are the biggest risk. Many draw names with their own font, which often has far fewer symbols than your phone. A name that looks fine in the name box can show boxes in the match or on the scoreboard. Symbols from rare scripts fail first: Javanese ꧁, Tibetan ༺, Egyptian 𓆩 and cuneiform 𒆜. Stars, hearts and brackets from the common symbol blocks work almost everywhere.

If a friend sees boxes, they can't fix it with a setting. Pick a decoration from the common blocks instead, or keep a plain version of your name for that app.

What a screen reader says

Screen readers read characters, not pictures. Some skip symbols they don't know. Others read the full Unicode name of every symbol, one after the other, before they get to your name. Fancy letters are worse: many readers skip them or spell them out one by one.

Keep decorations short, and keep the name inside them in plain letters if people need to find you. Discord, Instagram and most games search plain letters only, so 𝓗𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓸 won't match a search for "hello".