Military Alphabet

MILITARY ALPHABET

The military alphabet, or more properly the phonetic alphabet, exists in innumerable variants.

If any one variant can be viewed as “most correct”, it is the current NATO standard military alphabet. However, even in that standard for the military alphabet, numerous spelling variations are known to exist. This version of the military alphabet is also known as the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) code.

Variations of the Alphabet

This chart shows the NATO standard military alphabet along with a military alphabet used by the U.S. Navy before 1954, the military alphabet used by the U.S. Army in 1916, and the commercial Western Union phonetic alphabet.

Letter	NATO	U.S. Navy (Pre-1954)	U.S. Army (1916)	Western Union
A	Alpha	Able	Able	Adams
B	Bravo	Baker	Buy	Boston
C	Charlie	Charlie	Cast	Chicago
D	Delta	Dog	Dock	Denver
E	Echo	Easy	Easy	Easy
F	Foxtrot	Fox	Fox	Frank
G	Golf	George	George	George
H	Hotel	How	Have	Henry
I	India	Item	Item	Ida
J	Juliet	Jig	Jig	John
K	Kilo	King	King	King
L	Lima	Love	Love	Lincoln
M	Mike	Mike	Mike	Mary
N	November	Nan	Nap	New York
O	Oscar	Oboe	Opal	Ocean
P	Papa	Peter	Pup	Peter
Q	Quebec	Queen	Quack	Queen
R	Romeo	Roger	Rush	Roger
S	Sierra	Sugar	Sail	Sugar
T	Tango	Tare	Tape	Thomas
U	Uniform	Uncle	Unit	Union
V	Victor	Victor	Vice	Victor
W	Whiskey	William	Watch	William
X	Xray	X-ray	X-ray	X-ray
Y	Yankee	Yoke	Yoke	Young
Z	Zulu	Zebra	Zed	Zero

Example Usage of the Military Alphabet

Using the military alphabet to spell out “FortLiberty, we would say:

Foxtrot, Oscar, Romeo, Tango, Lima, India, Bravo, Echo, Romeo, Tango, Yankee

Military Alphabet Pronunciation Guide

Letter	Pronunciation	Letter	Pronunciation
A	AL FAH	N	NO VEM BER
B	BRAH VOH	O	OSS CAH
C	CHAR LEE	P	PAH PAH
D	DELL TAH	Q	KEH BECK
E	ECK OH	R	ROW ME OH
F	FOKS TROT	S	SEE AIR RAH
G	GOLF	T	TANG GO
H	HOH TELL	U	YOU NEE FORM
I	IN DEE AH	V	VIK TAH
J	JEW LEE ETT	W	WISS KEY
K	KEY LOH	X	ECKS RAY
L	LEE MAH	Y	YANG KEY
M	MIKE	Z	ZOO LOO