The letter V has a journey tracing back to the Semitic letter 'waw', which represented a consonant sound like /w/. The Greeks adopted it as their letter 'upsilon' (Υ, υ). The Etruscans and then the Romans took this form, initially using it for both the vowel /u/ and the consonant /w/. In Latin, over time, the rounded form 'V' became distinguished from the pointed form 'U', with 'V' used for the consonant sound. The name of the letter in English, pronounced "vee", follows the pattern of other vowel-named letters (like 'bee', 'dee') and solidified in the early Modern English period. Its use as an abbreviation, such as for 'versus' or 'volt', is a modern convention leveraging its distinctive shape and sound.

This is a simplex letter name. The letter 'V' originated from the Semitic letter 'waw', passed through Greek and Latin. Its functional role is as a symbol representing a specific speech sound.