Reims or Rheims?
Use Reims in current English. Rheims is a historical spelling of the same French city. It appeared in both French and English, so it was not invented by English speakers.
Is it Reims or Rheims?
Reims is the city’s official name and the spelling used today by the city, the French tourist office and the title of the UNESCO World Heritage listing. It is also the best spelling for travel searches, addresses and modern English writing.
Rheims is an older variant, not a different place. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names notes that the city is sometimes spelt Rheims in English. You may still meet that form in historical books and older descriptions of the cathedral.
Was Rheims created in English?
No. A French edition of Flodoard’s Histoire de l’Eglise de Rheims, published in Paris in 1824, uses Rheims in its title. A later edition printed in Reims in 1854 uses the spelling Reims. These books show that both forms once circulated in French.
The exact reason for the added h has not been established by the linguistic and historical sources consulted for this page. Claims that English speakers inserted it to mark a “hard R” or to imitate French pronunciation should not be treated as facts.
The two spellings also coexisted in English
English usage did not move neatly from Rheims to Reims at one recent date. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica placed its article under Reims. The 1924 Encyclopedia Americana used Rheims as its main heading and redirected readers there from Reims. Both spellings were therefore in use in major English-language works during the early twentieth century.
Even the current UNESCO page uses Reims in its title but contains one occurrence of Rheims in the body. That inconsistency is a useful reminder that the historical form has not disappeared from every English text.
Where does the name Reims come from?
The name comes from the Remi, the Gaulish people whose territory included the area. The ancient city was known as Durocortorum before the name of the people gradually replaced the older place name. Our guide to the meaning of Reims explains why scholars interpret Remi as “the first ones” or “those in front”.
How do you pronounce Reims?
The spelling question and the pronunciation question are separate. Adding an h does not make the modern French pronunciation clearer. Listen to the sound and read the phonetic explanation in our guide to pronouncing Reims in French.
