What is the i with a dot on top and dot on bottom called?

It's English it's called an underdot. It is a diacritical mark much as acute accents and umlauts are. In Unicode it is referred to as "dot below".

In Vietnamese, it's used to represent a particular tone, as Vietnamese is a tonal language where tone affects meaning and so it is good to reflect it in spelling.

Note that in the underdot is considered a diacritical mark, but the dot above is not; it is considered part of the i itself.

How to type it depends on your keyboard. One type used in Vietnamese would type it by pressing the key that is in the position 9 is on English-language keyboards, followed by the letter wanted for ạ ẹ ị ọ ụ ỵ (a "dead key" method to diacritics, as on physical typewriters the key wouldn't move the paper). It's combined with other dead keys for ặ ậ ệ ộ ợ ự.

In Unicode, it can be encoded either by "precomposed characters", or by following the vowel with "combinging dot below".


The dot below the letter i is a diacritic markdot is actually the correct term for the kind of mark it is.

In the case of Vietnamese, it denotes the nặng tone (low, glottal), used on the base vowels: ạ ặ ậ ẹ ệ ị ọ ộ ợ ụ ự ỵ

How you type it is system and keyboard dependent.