Not going to lie, I did not even know until this post that this is the NATO phonetic alphabet; I used to call it some military jargon (as I’ve heard these words in movies, e.g., “Delta to Alpha. Delta to Alpha. Over” from the Bollywood classic movie, Border). The Wikipedia page of NATO phonetic alphabet describes its origins as:

To create the code, a series of international agencies assigned 26 clear-code words (also known as “phonetic words”) acrophonically to the letters of the Roman alphabet, with the goal that the letters and numbers would be easily distinguishable from one another over radio and telephone. The words were chosen to be accessible to speakers of English, French and Spanish.

I don’t intend to veer away from the post’s topic too much, so will only list the NATO phonetic alphabet below for your reference:

Impressive, right? But let’s be honest, not everyone is (or can be) fluent in NATO. I only know some of them, e.g., Alfa (I even used to spell it as “Alpha”) and Bravo, but I had no idea about Lima or Yankee. I don’t see myself ever using Foxtrot. I do not remember I was ever taught these while growing up, hence, they just do not naturally occur to me. They are also somewhat hard to memorize now. So I just use my own versions whatever comes to mind at the time. It gets pretty stressful sometimes, I won’t lie. My wife shares a similar dilemma. If she is around while I am ‘struggling’, she would sometimes anticipate and keep an example or two handy to give me (and vice versa!).

Even though I mostly have to spell either my first name, last name, or physical or email address, essentially the same set of letters, I am still not consistent with my examples. One would expect I have a single go-to list, right? But no, I often (have to) improvise. My go-to strategy is to use words other people would know well, e.g., places of interest (I have always had a keen interest in geography, thanks to “Atlas” — a game wherein one names a place beginning with a letter that the previous place ended on — and a world wall map in my bedroom). So, I often spell my name as:

Here in the U.S. (America), Russia, Paris, India, England, and China are familiar international places. I forgot to mention earlier, but the places I use are based on the other person’s origin or current location (e.g., an American will most likely not know my hometown in India). To achieve all this, I have to essentially gather information about the caller from the get-go! Very stressful, right? That’s why I just prefer restaurant walk-ins over reservations.

Funnily, in case you didn’t notice, Tennis is not a place; in fact, I once actually apologized for using this ‘inconsistent’ example, “…this is not a place, sorry, but I couldn’t think of anything else!” The person on the other side of the call said, Tennessee. So now I try to use Tennessee as well, and it seems to have stuck as my cousin also lived there for a few years (so its memorable!).

But wait, there’s more! I don’t actually recall using all 26 letters in the alphabet, ever, so I really didn’t know what I would come up with if asked to spell something new (e.g., “J-U-M-B-O”). So, I am going to perform a live exercise below, typing down my own version(s) of the phonetic alphabet as they occur to me within 1–2 seconds (note: I may get multiple examples for the same letter, especially if I feel the previous example isn’t strong enough). Let’s see what I got:

Here are some of my thoughts on these choices: I chose Delta and Georgia because I live in Atlanta, Georgia which is also the home base for Delta Air Lines. Even after thinking for a few minutes, I couldn’t come up with a ‘stronger’ example for Y (Yugoslavia is definitely not more relatable than Yacht). F, for some reason (again!) took the longest time for me; and my eventual choice Finland isn’t the best one; a couple of times the person on the other side of the call didn’t know about Finland and said, “I’m sorry what?” to which I followed up with, “It is in Europe, but that’s not the point, ‘F’ for Finland!” Maybe I could use Fruit or Fire, but I can only hope one of them sticks.

Thanks for reading! Next time you’re spelling something over the phone, just remember: you’re not alone. Comment or email me your own unique (spelling) system and funny anecdotes. I’ll definitely read and respond (or not, if you don’t want me to)!

I get it — name misspellings happen all the time, and honestly, I’ve come to find them more amusing than frustrating. Over the years, my name has taken on many creative forms thanks to autocorrect, regional linguistic practices, organizational conventions, software and hardware limitations, human traits and skills {laziness, hastiness, camaraderie, love, fast typing speeds, ability to recall from memory, mismatched coordination between left- and right-hand while typing}, and my favorite “legends”. Below is a collection of some of the most memorable ones. Before we dive in, just a quick note — this post is all in good fun! It’s a lighthearted take on the creative ways my name has been transformed over the years.

• Autocorrect (most frequent)
  - Armpit — This even happened to me until I added my name to my devices’ dictionaries!
  - Armpit Away Narechania — Interestingly, my last name doesn’t seem to have an autocorrect suggestion. My middle (i.e. dad’s) name is Ajay, by the way.
• Regional Linguistic Practices
  - Arpith — I worked for three years in Bengaluru, a city in southern India. My colleagues, who were Kannada and Telugu language speakers, often added an extra ‘h’ at the end of my name in their emails. Unlike the respectful extensions like “-garu” (also in Telugu, Kannada) or “-ji” (used in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi languages), this variation reflects a unique regional practice. I used to correct people initially but then just went along with it. I won’t lie, I might have picked up this practice myself.
• Organizational Conventions
  - ARPITA NARECHANIA — Airlines often combine the first name (“Arpit”) and the middle initial (‘A’) on a boarding pass (recall my middle name is “Ajay”). The problem is that “ARPITA” is an Indian woman’s first name, which sometimes causes confusion at airport security.
• Software Limitations
  - Arpit Ajay Narecha — I don’t think my name is unreasonably long, but I guess in this case the system that auto-generated this email had an 18-character limit for the recipient’s name (probably worse if the underlying database had an 18-character limit). Not just digital systems, this also happens on physical bank/government forms that just do not have enough boxes (recall we must write one letter per box)! I vividly remember having to draw some boxes myself, sometimes really tiny ones depending on the available page margin.
• Ability to Recall (my last name) from Memory
  - Narichania
  - Narachania
  - Narechanya
  - Narachenia
  - Narchaniya
  - Nachaniya — This one actually means a dancer in Hindi, something I’m not, not in this life at least.
  - Narechani — new entry in Feb 2025.
  - Narechanica — new entry to this list in May 2025.
  - Narechiana — new entry in Jun 2025.
• Laziness, Hastiness, Love, Camaraderie, or Hardware issues (e.g. certain keyboard keys are semi-functional)
  - Arpi
  - Apit
  - Arp — My niece lovingly calls me this actually!
  - A — Ok, this one isn’t really a spelling mistake, but I thought I’d include this here any way. One of my collaborators assigned me a task with just an ‘A’ (A, can you take care of this?).
  - AN — Definitely clearer than just ‘A’ (especially because my advisor’s name also begins with an ‘A’) but definitely less cool than it.
• Fast typers who got all letters correct but in an incorrect order, maybe due to fluctuations in speed of the two hands. [Levenshtein distance = 1]
  - Aprit
  - Arpti
  - Aript
• Folks who don’t see the keyboard while typing get some letters wrong. [Levenshtein distance = 1]
  - Ar[it — ‘[’ is to the right of ‘p’ on a keyboard. Happens!
  - Aroit — By symmetry, ‘o’ is to the left of ‘p’ on a keyboard. Also happens!
  - Aepit — This symmetrical proximity phenomenon can be applied to ‘e’ and ‘r’ as well.
  - Arbit — ‘b’ instead of ‘p’ is a bit of a head-scratcher though! None of the letters in my name are that close to ‘b’.
  - Arnit — similar conundrum as in ‘Arbit’ above; ‘p’ is not that close to ‘n’.
  - Artit — Hmmm.
• Legends. [Levenshtein distance ≥ 2]
  - Ankit — This is literally another popular Indian name, and I swear the email was intended for me.
  - Artist — Thank you, I’m not complaining!
  - Qeouy — Total breakdown! Interestingly, each typed letter is exactly one letter unit distance away from the correct letter on a standard keyboard (e.g., ‘q’ and ‘a’).
• Miscellaneous.
  - Arpitarechania — literally performed fusion welding on my first and last name, also sacrificing the ‘N’ in the process.
  - Rpitnarechania —like above, but ‘A’ is redundant..sounds okay though!
  - Aripit — Two ‘i’s (or any letter) was a first. Close still!
  - A^(rpit Narechania) — Doesn’t this happen to dates (e.g., 15^(th) June)? First time seeing it happen to a name, my name!

Please do not worry if you’ve ever misspelled my name. Remember, this was all just a bit of satire. It’s all part of the fun! I too sometimes make these mistakes. What matters is that no matter the variant, it is still me — Arpit (or whatever else you’d like to call me today!). I am obviously excited to keep this post up to date with new variants and also investigate the cause(s) and circumstance(s) behind them. Surprise me! Challenge me!

There is another post in the works on how folks “pronounce” my name. Here’s a sneak peek — I was once addressed as A-R-P … how do you pronounce this? in a restaurant. Consequently, I just adopted an alias, Bob. Cheers.

Thanks for reading! Comment or email me your own story on misspelled names. I’ll definitely read and respond (or not, if you don’t want me to)!