Thanks for asking, the research turned out to be interesting and I learned some new stuff, which of course just pushed some old stuff out of my brain. I Britain, I think, and sometimes in the US, especially when giving dictation, the period (.) is called a "full stop" and the comma (,) is called a "half stop" self explanatory I think. I used the general American names, when I knew them. I've seen some efforts to name the @ "atper", "perat" and some other names. Circle A doesn't work because there is a symbol that is truly a capital A in a circle. Using good ol' One Look Dictionary Search( http://www.onelook.com/ ) and it's link to Online Etymology Dictionary ( http://www.etymonline.com/ ) I found, as I expected, that most of the names came down through Latin from Greek. I learned that some of them were terms used to describe parts of Greek Rhetoric, which was the way they gave public arguments, speeches, and such. There were very specific rules to follow in Rhetoric, steps that had to be followed in specific order, sorta like Hi-School debate but much stricter. Not all of it concerned "first this, then that" there were rules about how to stand and who to face at various stages, what kind of words to use at this time and what kinds at another. Even if the guy had a brilliant idea, if he didn't present it in the proper way, no one would listen. The names originally identified parts of a sentence or the speech and then the names were transferred to the punctuation mark. Some of the names came from Greek Theater, which also had some strict rules. And some of them were just made up (&) "atper" would be perfectly legitimate. S'anyway here's some of what I found; ! ? " ' well exclamation mark, quotation mark,quote within a quote, and question mark are self evident. . Period- From Greek literally meaning "Going on a journey" which became the time of the journey which became any interval of time . It was also used to describe a cycle of the Greek Games ( Olympics). In Rhetoric it came to mean a statement with a complete idea. Meaning "dot marking end of a sentence" first recorded 1609, from similar use in M.L. ( Middle Latin) , Comma- "short phrase," from L. comma, from Gk. komma "clause in a sentence," lit. "piece which is cut off," / slash? NO, "virgule"- used as a comma in medieval MSS, 1837, from Fr. virgule, from L. virgula "punctuation mark," lit. "little twig," ( I propose we start saying "dot com virgle index back virgle ", hmmm back virgle ,"elgriv" ? ' apostrophe- from Gk. apostrephein "avert, turn away," Greeks used this word for a "turning aside" of an orator in Rhetoric to address some individual, one of the required steps in true Rhetoric, which led to apostrophos "(the accent of) turning away," thus, somehow, a mark showing where a letter has been omitted or a letter that had been 'turned away?' ( Don't make much sense to me either.) : colon- kolon (with a long initial -o-) "part of a verse", which led to "independent clause" and then to punctuation mark that sets it off. [kolon (with a short initial -o-) "large intestine, food, meat."] ; semi-colon- 'course semi means half, I guess it could be called a magna comma, it is somewhere around half way between a comma and a colon, more than a comma, less than a colon ^ caret- from L. "there is lacking," because the ^ is used by an author or editor to indicate where something is to be inserted into a text - hyphen- Gk. hyphen "mark joining two syllables or words," probably indicating how they were to be sung, "together, in one," ( ) parenthesis- Gk. parentithenai "put in beside," 1550, "words, clauses, etc. inserted into a sentence," Extension of the word to the curved brackets is from 1715. [ ] brackets- The typographical bracket is first recorded 1750, so called for its resemblance to double supports in carpentry. Well sure a bracket holds something, but wait'll ya see the etymology. "probably from M.Fr. braguette "codpiece armor," !!!! related to a buncha words, somehow related to trousers and pants L. brachium "arm." { } I don't even know what these are called, fancy brackets? Or from the above ety. fancy pants brackets? Artistically embellished codpiece? * asterisk-from Gk. asterikos "little star," ( Who woulda thunk it?) "figure used in printing and writing to indicate footnote, omission, etc." first recorded 1612. & ampersand - The symbol is based on the L. word et "and," and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (can you make out the "E" and "t" ? but why it was faster to write & instead of Et, I dunno) it is read as 'and', the name is from 1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning " and the figure '&' by itself is 'and.' " Huh? Lessee, 'per se' is just plain ol' Latin for "by itself" and defined as meaning in English " with respect to its inherent nature " , so in 1837, somebody with too much time on their hands ( ahem, I'll ignore that rude comment you just made) , somebody decided the symbol, which had been perfectly happy being called 'and' or 'et', needed a new name so he named it "& is &" or as he explained it to the meeting of learned scholars, " And, and, by it self, and with respect to its inherent nature of being and is and. And lastly I would like to end in finalization with the concluding summation that , 'Percy is a sissy, per se.' " Ok, just two more, just because I found them interesting. + plus- '1579, the oral rendering of the arithmetical sign +, from L. plus "more" from *pleos, altered by influence of minus, from PIE *ple- "full" ( PIE- Proto-Indo-European, ancestral language of the Indo-European family) The plus-sign itself has been well-known since at least 1489 and is perhaps an abbreviation of L. et. ' Wait a min I thot & was et, and + is et? and & is + & and is et + and et &? etc etc... Dang that Percy! It's all his fault # octothorpe ( really! accordin to http://www.bartleby.com/61/88/O0028850.html ) also called a sharp, but the musical symbol has subtle differences, Among it's names; "number sign", "hash mark," " hatch mark," "scratch," "tic-tac-toe," gate and crunch; hex; [mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; flash; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat. . In the USA only, it is referred to as the "pound sign." British Telecom customer messages call it the "square". Commonly in UK telecoms engineering usage, it is called the "gate" symbol. If I remember right ( this is notmrjohn and I do have what could be referred to as a memory) in the US telephone messages call it a "number sign" or "pound sign," but then tell you where it is. For a while the Brits were real upset about calling it a pound sign, since to them the pound sign was that fancy L, but now they use Euros for money . So 'nyah' to them. In early Texas a man named Hatch used # as his cattle brand, makes perfect sense, but the cowboys and then everone else called it the Pig Pen. Reading and naming brands takes a lifetime of learning, a man named Hash had a ranch in the Northwest, his brand was #, it was called the Hashpan! Prolly cause the waddies remembered the Hashknife and Fryingpan ranches in Texas. One of the Cash's brand was a squared off C, [ , with longer horizontal legs, another Cash used $ , The [ was called the busted corral. Then there was the Quien sabe? ( Spanish for "who knows") nobody knew what it looked like, how to describe it, or what to call it. Maybe we can call @ or # the Quien sabe. Whew! You tired? Ah'm tarred.

notmrjohn's answer was great and very imformitive. I'd just like to add some info regarding "&" ampersand. According to Imponderibles, the name comes from old school houses, in which children learning their letters would find this above their blackboard "A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y & Z". Every day they would have to recite these letters, and they would do so by saying "ay and bee and see and dee and...". By the time they got to "Y" they would come to the symbol and recite it as well. But rather than saying "and and and zee", they simply said "per se". Therefore it become "wy and per se and zee". If you've ever been force to say the pledge of alledgience daily in school, you'd probably know how slurred and lazy your words can get, more sounds than intellible words, at times. "and per se and" was slurred into "andpersand" or "ampersand" as we know it today, and is attributed to the symbol "&".

"For a while the Brits were real upset about calling it a pound sign, since to them the pound sign was that fancy L, but now they use Euros for money." How amazingly uninformed! The 'Brits' don't use Euros (unless we're on holiday in Europe)! We use pounds sterling, for which the sign is £ (lira - above number 3 on a UK keyboard) and not # (which occupies the corresponding space on a US keyboard)