How to spell something the NATO way
Spelling alphabets exist because letters sound alike on a bad line: B, D, E, G, P, T and V are almost indistinguishable over a crackly phone call, and so are M and N or F and S. Replacing each letter with an agreed word that cannot be mistaken — Bravo, Delta, Echo — removes the guesswork. Type your text above and each character is shown with its code word; spaces between words are kept as gaps so the listener can hear where one word ends.
When you read it out, say each code word clearly with a short pause between letters, and say ‘space’ or pause for longer between words. For something like a postcode, most people read it in its natural groups: Sierra Whiskey One Alfa — Two Alfa Alfa. For passwords and case-sensitive codes, tick Say case so each letter is announced as Capital or Small; digits and symbols are always spelled explicitly so nothing is left to interpretation.
Accented letters such as é or ñ are spelled as their base letter and marked so you remember to mention the accent; letters that have no base letter, such as Æ, Ø, Ł and Þ, are spelled with their usual transliteration (Alfa Echo, Oscar, Lima, Tango Hotel) and marked too. A character with no code word — an emoji, for example — is listed underneath rather than silently dropped. Commas used as thousands separators (1,000) are not read out, so the digits run straight through.
The NATO phonetic alphabet and its pronunciation
The alphabet was adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 1956 after tests with speakers of English, French and Spanish, and NATO, the ITU and most emergency services use the same words. The spellings Alfa and Juliett are deliberate: ‘Alpha’ is pronounced wrongly by some French speakers and a single ‘t’ in Juliet can be read as silent. The chart shows the ICAO respellings with the stressed syllable in capitals. Most words stress the first syllable (AL-fah, BRAH-voh), but a few do not and are easy to get wrong: hoh-TELL, pah-PAH, keh-BECK, no-VEM-ber and see-AIR-rah.
| Letters | Code words |
|---|---|
| A–G | Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf |
| H–N | Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November |
| O–U | Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform |
| V–Z | Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu |
Numbers have their own pronunciations to stop ‘five’ and ‘nine’ being confused on the radio. ICAO writes the words normally — One, Two, Four, Eight — and says them WUN, TOO, FOW-er, AIT; three, five and nine are usually written as they are said, Tree, Fife and Niner. The tool follows exactly that: with Tree, Fife, Niner ticked those three digits use the respelled words, the others keep their normal spelling, and every digit shows how to say it. Untick the option for plain Three, Five and Nine. A full stop between digits is read as Decimal (DAY-see-MAL), as in One Two Tree Decimal Fife.
Older and national spelling alphabets
The Alphabet menu switches to other spelling alphabets you may still meet. Some US police departments use the APCO alphabet (Adam, Boy, Charles…). The Western Union list (Adams, Boston, Chicago…) was used by US telegraph operators in the early twentieth century. The RAF and US WWII alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog…) is the one heard in wartime films; it was replaced in 1956 because several words were hard for non-English speakers. The chart puts the NATO word beside each one so you can compare.
German speakers use DIN 5009. The traditional names — Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora — are still what most people say on the phone, and include words for Ä, Ö, Ü, ß and the combinations Ch and Sch. In 2022 the standard replaced the personal names with German towns and cities (Aachen, Berlin, Chemnitz…), and umlauts became Umlaut Aachen and so on. There are also the common telephone alphabets of France (Anatole, Berthe, Célestin), Italy (Ancona, Bologna, Como — with Jolly, Kappa, Washington, Xeres, York for the foreign letters), the Netherlands (Anton, Bernard, Cornelis, with IJmuiden for IJ) and Sweden (Adam, Bertil, Caesar, with Åke, Ärlig and Östen). Digits and the common punctuation marks are named in the matching language, and speech uses a voice for that language when your device has one; other national variants exist, so check what the person on the other end expects.
Decoding code words back to text
Choose Code words → text and paste the words someone read to you, or a spelling copied from an email. Alfa Lima Papa Hotel Alfa Bravo Echo Tango becomes ALPHABET. The decoder is forgiving: capitals do not matter, the common informal spellings (Alpha, Juliet, Xray, Whisky) and the spoken digit forms (Wun, Too, Tree, Fower, Fife, Ait, Niner) are recognised, and commas, dashes and full stops between words are ignored. Space inserts a space, Decimal a decimal point, and a long dash, slash, vertical bar or blank line starts a new word. Capital and Small before a letter set its case, so a spoken password decodes exactly.
Words from every alphabet in the menu are understood, with the one you have selected taking priority where they differ — in Western Union, for example, Zero means Z, while in NATO it is the digit. Multi-word names such as New York or Umlaut Aachen are matched whole. Anything that is not a code word is shown as ? and listed, so a mishearing stands out. The decoder also reads this tool’s own output in either layout, including the pronunciation in brackets, so you can check a spelling round-trips before you send it. If you paste code words while spelling, a banner shows what they decode to and offers to switch.
Listening, copying and learning
Listen reads the spelling aloud with your device’s built-in voices, highlighting each word as it is spoken; set the speed with the slider and choose a voice if your system offers several. Speech is produced locally by your browser, so voices differ between Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. A few browsers — Firefox on Linux without speech-dispatcher, for example — have no voices at all; the tool waits a moment for voices to load and, if none arrive, disables Listen and says why. Tap any word in the result or the chart to hear just that one.
Copy spelling gives you plain text in the layout you chose: one ‘A – Alfa’ line per character (with pronunciations if they are switched on), or a single line of code words with an em dash between words, ready to paste into a chat or email. The plain-text version is also shown under the result.
To learn the alphabet, use Test yourself. It has three modes: type the code word for a letter, type the letter for a code word (the direction you need when listening), or type the spoken word for a digit. Most people know all 26 after a few sessions. If you are spelling out a password, you can create a strong one first with the password generator; for spelling in code rather than speech, try the Morse code translator.
Frequently asked questions
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
It is the set of 26 code words — Alfa, Bravo, Charlie through to Zulu — used to spell letters clearly over radio and telephone. It was adopted by ICAO in 1956 and is used by NATO, aviation, shipping, the police, emergency services and customer-service teams worldwide. Digits have their own spoken forms such as Tree and Niner.
Is it Alpha or Alfa, Juliet or Juliett?
The official ICAO and NATO spellings are Alfa and Juliett. They were chosen so that speakers of other languages pronounce them correctly — ‘ph’ is not read as ‘f’ in every language, and a double t stops the final letter being treated as silent. Alpha and Juliet are widely used informally and are accepted in the quiz.
How do I spell my name phonetically?
Type your name into the box and read out the code words shown, one per letter. For example, Sarah is Sierra Alfa Romeo Alfa Hotel. If your name has an accented letter, say the base letter's code word and mention the accent. Press Listen to hear how it sounds before you use it on a call.
How do I convert NATO code words back into letters?
Choose Code words → text above the box and paste the words, for example Alfa Bravo Charlie. The letters appear straight away — ABC — and any word that is not a code word is shown as a question mark and listed. Informal spellings such as Alpha, Juliet and Niner are understood, and Space or a long dash starts a new word.
How do you say numbers in the phonetic alphabet?
ICAO writes the digits Zero, One, Two, Tree, Four, Fife, Six, Seven, Eight and Niner, and says them ZE-ro, WUN, TOO, TREE, FOW-er, FIFE, SIX, SEV-en, AIT and NIN-er. Digits are read one at a time, a decimal point is Decimal, and round figures can use Hundred and Thousand. Untick Tree, Fife, Niner for ordinary Three, Five and Nine.
Why can’t I hear anything when I press Listen?
Speech uses your device’s own text-to-speech voices. Check your volume and that the tab is not muted, and try another voice from the list. Some browsers on Linux and some privacy-focused browsers ship without voices; when none load, the Listen button is disabled and a note explains why. On iPhone, the silent switch also silences web speech.
Which phonetic alphabet do the police use?
UK police forces and most police services in Europe, Australia and North America use the NATO alphabet, the same as the military and aviation. Some US police departments still use the older APCO alphabet — Adam, Boy, Charles — which you can choose from the Alphabet menu. NATO is the international standard and the safest choice.