Left Double Quotation Mark
Block: General Punctuation
- Symbol
- “
- Unicode
U+201C- Unicode name
- LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
- Block
- General Punctuation
- Category
- Punctuation, Initial Quote
- Type
- Punctuation character
Left Double Quotation Mark (“) is encoded as U+201C and has the formal Unicode name LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK. Unicode classifies it as Punctuation, Initial Quote in the General Punctuation block. The left double quotation mark is commonly used as an opening curly double quote. Separately encoded named neighbors include ” Right Double Quotation Mark (U+201D); those records should be compared by name and code point rather than merged because their shapes or terminology are related.
The Encoded Identity Behind Left Double Quotation Mark
“ is Left Double Quotation Mark (U+201C), classified by Unicode as Punctuation, Initial Quote. In digital typography, that encoded identity is separate from the font drawing: a typeface can change width, stroke, or placement without turning the character into another code point.
This matters when punctuation, currency, or measurement marks have close visual neighbors. Preserve the intended character first; language- or style-guide spacing rules can then be applied without silently substituting a different mark.
Not the symbol you were looking for? Use what is this “ symbol? to identify another mark from pasted text, Unicode, or visual appearance.
Opening and closing quotation marks are separate characters
Unicode gives the leading side of this pair its own value: “ (U+201C) is LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK. The character at the other end, ” (U+201D), is RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK.
For a search or replacement rule aimed at the leading edge of a quotation, target the opening character explicitly. Matching the closing counterpart would locate a different position in the same visible pair.
How WITS Identifies “ in Real Text
The left double quotation mark is commonly used as an opening curly double quote. WITS also indexes search names such as “left double quote”, “opening double quote”, “curly double quote”, “punctuation”, and “quotes”.
Those labels are useful for discovery, but the stable identity is still the Unicode code point or sequence. That distinction matters when the same concept is described with several names or rendered differently across platforms.
How “ Is Encoded
The encoded identity can be represented without relying on the glyph. U+201C = decimal 8220 = HTML “ / “. A Unicode escape-style representation is u201C. The UTF-8 byte sequence for the current glyph is E2 80 9C.
These forms are useful when a font does not display the symbol clearly, when debugging copied text, or when comparing characters that look alike. Numeric references and escapes identify the underlying code point or sequence rather than a particular font drawing.
Check U+201C Before Replacing “
Related-character data links “ with " Quotation Mark / Double Quote (U+0022), ” Right Double Quotation Mark (U+201D), and „ Double Low-9 Quotation Mark (U+201E). The relation is a warning to inspect identity, not a statement that the characters mean the same thing.
Fonts can compress small shape differences, especially at UI sizes. Code points, formal names, and relation type are therefore more reliable than visual similarity when copied text must preserve the intended character.