The sign of equals (British English, Unicode Consortium) or the equal sign (American English), formerly known as the equality sign, is the mathematical symbol =, which is used to denote equality in a well-defined sense. An equation is placed between two expressions that have the same value or for which the conditions in which they have the same value are studied.

Unicode and ASCII have a 3D code point. It was invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde.

A possible unique case of an equal sign of European use in the name of a person, especially in a double-barreled name, is that of the aviator pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, as he is also known not only to have often used a double dash similar to a sign of equality = between two surnames instead of a hyphen, but his also seems to have personally preferred this practice to show equal respect for his father’s French ethnicity and mother’s Brazilian ethnicity its.

Instead of a double hyphen, the equal sign is sometimes used in Japanese as a separator between names. In Ojibwe, the equal sign of the easily accessible keyboard is used as a replacement for a double dash.

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