NATO phonetic alphabet converter
N as in November — any text, spelled out clearly.
Output
Paste or type above to see the result here.
Your files stay on your device
This tool runs entirely in your browser. What you paste is processed on your device and is never sent to a server, so it is safe to use with tokens, keys and unpublished text.
Example
Example: a booking reference and a surname read out over a bad phone line
Calling an airline about a changed flight, you are asked for the booking reference and your surname. Type “K7Q4XJ O’Neill”, keep International (NATO / ICAO) and One letter per line. Fictitious reference and name.
- On one line the same reads “Kilo – Seven – Quebec – Four (Fower) – X-ray – Juliett / Oscar – ’ – November – Echo – India – Lima – Lima”: dashes between letters, a slash between words.
- Capitals are not marked — K and k are both Kilo — and symbols stay as they are, so say “capital”, “apostrophe” or “dash” yourself where it matters.
| Typed | Say |
|---|---|
| K | Kilo |
| 7 | Seven |
| Q | Quebec |
| 4 | Four (Fower) |
| X | X-ray |
| J | Juliett |
| O | Oscar |
| ’ | (left as it is — say “apostrophe”) |
| N, e, i, l, l | November, Echo, India, Lima, Lima |
Read it as “Kilo, Seven, Quebec, Four, X-ray, Juliett” and the agent cannot hear Q as U or J as G. A postcode works the same way: “LS9 8BN” is Lima – Sierra – Nine (Niner) / Eight – Bravo – November.
How it works
- Type or paste what you need to spell — a surname, an email address, a booking code.
- Choose the spelling alphabet your listener knows: the international one, or a country’s own.
- Read it out word by word, or copy it into a message.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
- The international radiotelephony spelling alphabet (ICAO, also used by NATO): Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta… Zulu, with words chosen to be understood over a bad line in any accent. “Nouplo” is November Oscar Uniform Papa Lima Oscar.
- Why Alfa and Juliett?
- That is the official spelling: “Alfa” and “Juliett” are pronounced correctly by speakers of languages where “ph” or a single final “t” would be misread. Digits have radio pronunciations too — Tree, Fower, Fife, Niner — shown in brackets.
- Which national alphabets are there?
- German DIN 5009 (the 2022 version uses cities: Nürnberg, Offenbach, Unna…) and the traditional Anton, Berta, Cäsar; French (Anatole, Berthe…); Spanish; Italian by cities (Ancona, Bologna, Como…); Turkish (Adana, Bolu, Ceyhan…); the Japanese 和文通話表 for kana and the Korean 국문 통화표 for Hangul.
- What about letters with accents?
- Each national table spells its own letters — Ä, Ö, Ü and ß in German, Ñ in Spanish, Ç, Ğ, İ, Ş in Turkish. Elsewhere the base letter is spelled and the accent named.
- How do I spell out an email address?
- Type it in: the letters are spelled and the symbols are left as they are, so j.oneill@example.com, on one line, comes out as “Juliett . Oscar November Echo India Lima Lima @ Echo X-ray …”. Say “dot” and “at” where they stand, and tell the listener whether there are capitals.
- Why use Quebec and Juliett instead of “Q for queen”?
- Made-up words (“B for butter, P for Peter”) change from person to person and can be misheard themselves. The NATO / ICAO words are the same for every listener, chosen to sound unlike each other, and widely known in aviation, at sea and in call centres.
- Is anything sent anywhere?
- No. It is spelled in your browser.