NATO phonetic alphabet converter
Type a name, email address, licence plate, or booking code and get it spelled out in the standard Alfa-Bravo-Charlie alphabet — ready to read down the phone so the other end writes it correctly the first time.
Say this
Mike Uniform Kilo Hotel Echo Romeo Juliett Echo Echo
- MMike
- uUniform
- kKilo
- hHotel
- eEcho
- rRomeo
- jJuliett
- eEcho
- eEcho
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.
The NATO phonetic alphabet, A to Z
The official ICAO spellings and pronunciations. Stressed syllables are in capitals. A few spellings look wrong on purpose — see the FAQ for why it's Alfa and Juliett.
Numbers, 0 to 9
Read digit by digit. Tree, fife, and niner are deliberate: they keep 3, 5, and 9 distinct on a bad line.
How to spell something over the phone so it lands right
Letters that sound alike — B and D, M and N, F and S — are where phone spellings go wrong. The phonetic alphabet fixes that by replacing each letter with a word that can't be mistaken for any other word in the set. Bravo is never Delta, however bad the line.
In practice: say the letter, then the code word, and pause between each one. “S, Sierra. I, India. O, Oscar.” For a repeated letter say “double” — “double L, Lima Lima.” Spell the whole word, not just the part you think is unusual; the person writing it down doesn't know which part you meant.
For anything with capitals that matter — a password, a licence key — switch the converter to Mark capitalsand it will say “capital Bravo” where needed. For a caller who isn't used to the alphabet, the A as in Alfa style is easier to follow than bare code words.
If you run a business, the reverse problem is the bigger one: callers spelling theirnames, emails, and addresses to you, at speed, while you're trying to write. That's where an AI receptionist earns its keep — it captures the caller's details, confirms spellings back to them, and sends you a written summary, so nothing arrives as “S-something-bhan”.
NATO phonetic alphabet FAQ
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?+
A standard set of 26 code words — Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu — one for each letter, chosen so they're hard to confuse with each other over a noisy radio or phone line. It's formally the ICAO spelling alphabet, adopted by NATO in the 1950s, and it's now the default way pilots, emergency services, call centres, and anyone giving a booking reference spell things aloud.
Why is it spelled 'Alfa' and 'Juliett' instead of 'Alpha' and 'Juliet'?+
Those are the official ICAO spellings, and they're deliberate. 'Alfa' is used because speakers of many languages wouldn't know that 'ph' is pronounced 'f'. 'Juliett' has a double T so French speakers don't treat the final T as silent. The words are meant to be pronounced correctly by people who've never seen them written.
How do you say numbers in the NATO alphabet?+
Digits are spoken as words, with a few altered pronunciations for clarity: three is 'tree', five is 'fife', nine is 'niner', and four is 'fow-er'. These changes stop 3 and 5 from blurring together and keep 9 distinct from the German 'nein'. Numbers are read digit by digit — 42 is 'fow-er too', not 'forty-two'.
How do I spell a name over the phone?+
Say each letter followed by its code word, either as 'S, Sierra' or 'S as in Sierra'. Pause briefly between letters and say 'double' for repeated letters ('double L, Lima Lima'). For names with capitals or unusual spellings, spell the whole thing rather than just the tricky part — the person writing it down can't tell which part you think is tricky. The converter above does the work for you; paste the name and read the output.
Is there a different phonetic alphabet for the US or UK?+
Both use the NATO/ICAO alphabet today. Older systems — the US military's 'Able Baker' alphabet, or the UK's 'Ack Beer' — were replaced by the ICAO set in 1956 precisely so everyone would use the same words. Police forces sometimes keep local variants (the LAPD's 'Adam Boy Charles', for example), but for the phone the NATO alphabet is universal.
Is anything I type sent to a server?+
No. The converter is plain JavaScript running in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, logged, or stored, so it's safe to use for reference numbers, email addresses, or anything else you'd rather not paste into a website.
Spelling is the easy half
Make sure every call gets written down.
RingOwl is the AI answering service for appointment-heavy small businesses. It answers every call 24/7, captures names and details correctly, books the appointment, and texts you a summary.
7-day trial · 30 minutes included · No credit card.
Related tools