Say it once, spell it once: the dictation test
A large share of how a small business gets found happens out loud: a recommendation over coffee, a mention on a podcast, a phone number read out at the end of a call. In each case the listener has to turn a sound into the right spelling and then type it. A name that fails that step loses customers in a way no analytics dashboard will show you.
Say the name once, at normal speed, to someone who has never seen it written. Ask them to type it into a search box or address bar. If they get it right first time without asking how it is spelt, the name passes. If they hesitate, ask, or type something else, note exactly what they typed. That is where your traffic will go.
Running it properly
The informal version, asking a friend across the table, is better than nothing and still too easy. They can see your lips, they know roughly what the business does, and they want to be helpful. A proper test removes those advantages:
- Use a phone or a voice message, not a face-to-face conversation. Audio-only is how most real referrals arrive.
- Embed the name in a sentence: “You should try Northwind for that, they're good.” Names are rarely heard on their own.
- Test at least five people who do not know the shortlist, including some whose first language is not the one the name is in, if your market includes them.
- Record what they type, character by character. Each wrong version is a candidate domain to check, and possibly to register.
- Test the reverse: show the written name to people who have not heard it and ask them to say it aloud. A name people cannot confidently pronounce is a name they will not say in front of others.
Patterns that fail
The checker on the home page flags some of these automatically, because they are reliable predictors of mishearing or mistyping:
| Pattern | Why it fails |
|---|---|
| Three identical letters in a row | Commonly mistyped and impossible to hear. Is it two or three? |
| Five or more consonants together | Hard to say, and harder to spell from hearing |
| “ph” or “gh” | Competes with “f”. Expect to spell it out every time |
| Repeated doubled vowels | An easy place to lose or add a letter |
| q, x or z | Letters people hesitate over when typing from memory |
| Digits | Every mention needs “the number 4” or “four, spelt out”, for as long as the name exists |
| Hyphens | Dropped almost every time when said aloud, which sends the traffic to whoever holds the unhyphenated version |
Other patterns the automatic check does not catch, but your human test will:
- Homophones, words that sound like other words: “Sight” and “Site”, “Rite” and “Right”. The listener will pick the common one.
- Creative misspellings such as “Kwik”, “Lyte” or a dropped vowel. They make a name easier to register as a domain and harder for everyone to find by ear.
- Ambiguous word boundaries: two words run together that can be split more than one way when written. Test the written form on people who have never heard it.
- Regional accents. Vowel sounds vary a lot between accents. A name that is clear in one region may sound like a different word in another.
Why trademark law cares about sound too
The dictation test is not only a marketing check. In trademark law, marks are compared visually, aurally and conceptually. The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed in Lloyd Schuhfabrik Meyer v Klijsen Handel (C-342/97, 1999) that aural similarity alone may be enough to create a likelihood of confusion. That works in two directions:
- A distinctive spelling does not avoid a conflict. If your name sounds like an existing mark for similar goods, the unusual spelling may not save you. Search phonetic variants, not just the exact string. Why identical is the wrong test covers this.
- The misheard versions are your exposure. The spellings your test subjects typed are roughly the set of names that an examiner, a court or a competitor might regard as similar to yours.
What to do with a name that half-passes
Few names pass perfectly. If the name is strong in every other way, you can reduce the cost of a dictation problem:
- Register the obvious misspellings as domains and redirect them. Your test results tell you which.
- Pick the spelling most people produce by default, if it is available, rather than the one you prefer.
- Avoid adding a second problem: a name that is hard to spell and hyphenated and on an unusual ending is three separate leaks.
If the name fails badly, with most people typing something different, take that seriously. You will be spelling it out on every call for as long as the business runs.
Questions
Does any of this matter if most customers find us through search?
Search corrects some misspellings, but not reliably for a new or invented name with no search history, and it tends to send the misspelt query to whatever already ranks for it. Spoken referrals also matter most early on, before search has learned your name.
We sell internationally. Which language should we test in?
Every language in markets you plan to enter within a few years. Test both pronunciation and meaning with native speakers. A name that is easy to say in English can be awkward, or mean something unfortunate, elsewhere.
Is a short name always easier to dictate?
No. Very short names are often acronyms or strings of letters, and letters are easily confused when spoken: B, D, P and T, or M and N. A clear two-syllable word usually dictates better than three letters.
Related
- Brainstorming names that clearWhere this test fits in the process
- Choosing between TLDsThe ending is part of what people have to remember
Published 2026-10-18. A process guide. The CJEU decision is cited as published, and the checker's patterns are as implemented on this site.