Dictionary.net

"@". ASCII code 64. Common names: at sign, at,strudel. Rare: each, vortex, whorl, INTERCAL: whirlpool,cyclone, snail, ape, cat, rose, cabbage, amphora. ITU-T:commercial at.The @ sign is used in an electronic mail address to separatethe local part from the hostname. This dates back to July1972 when Ray Tomlinson was designing the first[?] e-mailprogram.It is ironic that @ has become a trendy mark of Internetawareness since it is a very old symbol, derived from thelatin preposition "ad" (at).Giorgio Stabile, a professor of history in Rome, has tracedthe symbol back to the Italian Renaissance in a Romanmercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on 1536-05-04.In Dutch it is called "apestaartje" (little ape-tail), inGerman "affenschwanz" (ape tail). The French name is"arobase". In Spain and Portugal it denotes a weight of about25 pounds, the weight and the symbol are called "arroba".Italians call it "chiocciola" (snail).See @-party.