NATO Alphabet & Phonetic Translator
Spell any text as official NATO/ICAO code words — Alfa, Bravo, Charlie … Zulu — and decode code words back to plain text. Uses the honest standard spellings (Alfa, Juliett, X-ray, Niner). Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Worked examples
Input (encode): Hello World
↓
Hotel Echo Lima Lima Oscar Whiskey Oscar Romeo Lima Delta
Input (encode): SOS
↓
Sierra Oscar Sierra
Input (encode): Flight AZ123
↓
Foxtrot Lima India Golf Hotel Tango Alfa Zulu One Two Tree
Input (encode): NATO 2026
↓
November Alfa Tango Oscar Two Zero Two Six
Input (encode): gate B7
↓
Golf Alfa Tango Echo Bravo Seven
Input (decode): Sierra Oscar Sierra
↓
SOS
Input (decode): Foxtrot Lima India Golf Hotel Tango / Alfa Zulu One Two Tree
↓
FLIGHT AZ123
Input (encode (plain digits)): Hello, World!
↓
Hotel Echo Lima Lima Oscar , Whiskey Oscar Romeo Lima Delta !
Official NATO phonetic alphabet — full reference table
The 26 code words adopted by NATO in 1956, plus the 10 ICAO spoken number words. Note the deliberate respellings: Alfa (not Alpha), Juliett (double T), X-ray (hyphenated).
| Character | Code word | Pronunciation | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Alfa | AL-fah | letter |
| B | Bravo | BRAH-voh | letter |
| C | Charlie | CHAR-lee | letter |
| D | Delta | DELL-tah | letter |
| E | Echo | ECK-oh | letter |
| F | Foxtrot | FOKS-trot | letter |
| G | Golf | golf | letter |
| H | Hotel | HOH-tel | letter |
| I | India | IN-dee-ah | letter |
| J | Juliett | JEW-lee-ett | letter |
| K | Kilo | KEY-loh | letter |
| L | Lima | LEE-mah | letter |
| M | Mike | mike | letter |
| N | November | NO-vem-ber | letter |
| O | Oscar | OSS-cah | letter |
| P | Papa | PAH-pah | letter |
| Q | Quebec | KEH-beck | letter |
| R | Romeo | ROW-me-oh | letter |
| S | Sierra | SEE-air-rah | letter |
| T | Tango | TANG-go | letter |
| U | Uniform | YOU-nee-form | letter |
| V | Victor | VIK-tah | letter |
| W | Whiskey | WISS-key | letter |
| X | X-ray | ECKS-ray | letter |
| Y | Yankee | YANG-key | letter |
| Z | Zulu | ZOO-loo | letter |
| 0 | Zero | ZEE-roh | digit |
| 1 | One | wun | digit |
| 2 | Two | too | digit |
| 3 | Tree | tree | digit |
| 4 | Fower | FOW-er | digit |
| 5 | Fife | fife | digit |
| 6 | Six | six | digit |
| 7 | Seven | SEV-en | digit |
| 8 | Eight | ait | digit |
| 9 | Niner | NINE-er | digit |
How the translation works
Each letter A–Z maps to exactly one fixed code word, and each digit 0–9 maps to a spoken number word. Encoding reads your text character by character: letters become code words, digits become number words, and punctuation is kept or dropped per your setting. Decoding reverses it — it matches each word against the official table (plus common variants like Alpha, Juliet, and Xray) and turns slashes between groups back into spaces, the way radio operators separate words.
Frequently asked questions
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
The NATO phonetic alphabet — officially the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet — is a set of 26 code words (Alfa, Bravo, Charlie through Zulu) plus spoken number words, developed by ICAO in the 1950s and adopted by NATO in 1956. Each letter gets one unmistakable word so spellings survive noisy radio and phone lines. Pilots, air-traffic controllers, the military, maritime services, emergency dispatchers, and call centers use it worldwide.
When should I use the NATO phonetic alphabet?
Use it any time a spelling must survive a bad connection: reading out names, email addresses, booking references, serial numbers, or call signs over the phone or radio. Customer-service agents, amateur radio operators, and pilots use it daily. It also helps multilingual teams, where similar-sounding letters such as M and N or B and D are easily confused.
Why does this tool write Niner instead of Nine?
Because that is the honest standard. ICAO defines four altered digit pronunciations — TREE, FOWER, FIFE, and NINER — so numbers stay distinct through static and across accents. The plain English word is nine, but on the radio it is spoken as NINER. This tool defaults to the ICAO spoken forms; switch on plain English digits if you prefer Three, Four, Five, and Nine.
Is it spelled Alfa or Alpha?
The official NATO and ICAO spelling is ALFA with an F, JULIETT with a double T, and X-RAY hyphenated. The words were deliberately respelled in the 1950s so non-native English speakers would pronounce them correctly. Alpha and Juliet are common casual spellings — this tool uses the official forms by default but still understands the common ones when decoding.
How is the NATO alphabet different from the police phonetic alphabet?
They are different word sets for different communities. The LAPD-style alphabet — Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward — is an older American law-enforcement convention still heard on some US police scanners. The NATO set replaced the earlier Joint Army-Navy Able Baker alphabet in 1956 and is the international standard, recognized by ICAO, the ITU, and the IMO. For anything cross-border or aviation-related, use NATO.
How do I decode NATO code words back into text?
Paste the code words into the input, separated by spaces, slashes, or line breaks — for example Sierra Oscar Sierra — and choose the NATO to text direction, or let auto-detect decide. A slash between groups becomes a space in the decoded text, matching radio convention. The decoder also accepts common variants such as Alpha, Juliet, and Xray, and flags any word it does not recognize with a question mark.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The translator runs entirely in your browser — every conversion happens on your device, and nothing you type is uploaded, logged, or shared. You can even keep using it offline once the page has loaded.
Related tools: Letter List Generator (generate A–Z letter lists, including NATO phonetic word lists) · Morse Code Translator (convert text to Morse code and back).
Free tool by NRTechStudio