University of the Western Cape and University of Western Australia are all known colloquially as "U Dub", and the automobile company Volkswagen, abbreviated "VW", is sometimes pronounced "V-Dub". The fact that many website URLs require a "www." prefix has been influential in promoting these shortened pronunciations. In other Germanic languages, including German (but not Dutch, in which it is pronounced wé), its name is similar to that of English V. In many languages, its name literally means "double v": Portuguese duplo vê, Spanish doble ve (though it can be spelled uve doble), French double vé, Icelandic tvöfalt vaff, Czech dvojité vé, Estonian kaksisvee, Finnish kaksois-vee, etc. Former U.S. president George W. Bush was given the nickname "Dubya" after the colloquial pronunciation of his middle initial in Texas, where he spent much of his childhood. Related characters Ancestors, descendants and siblings 𐤅: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive U : Latin letter U V : Latin letter V Ⱳ ⱳ : W with hook Ꝡ ꝡ : Latin letter VY Ꟃ ꟃ : Anglicana W, used in medieval English and Cornish IPA-specific symbols related to W: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to W: and ʷ : Modifier letter small w is used in Indo-European studies ꭩ : Modifier letter small turned w is used in linguistic transcriptions of Scots W with diacritics: Ẃ ẃ Ẁ ẁ Ŵ ŵ Ẅ ẅ Ẇ ẇ Ẉ ẉ ẘ װ (double vav): the Yiddish and Hebrew equivalent of W Arabic و, has the same origin despite bearing little resemblance to W Ligatures and abbreviations ₩ : Won sign, capital letter W with double stroke Computing codes 1 Other representations See also Digamma (Ϝ), the archaic Greek letter for /w/ Voiced labio-velar approximant Wh (digraph) W stands for Work in physics W is the symbol for "watt" in the International System of Units (SI) References Informational notes Citations External links ISO basic Latin letters Latin-script ligatures Vowel letters