German spelling alphabet

German telephone alphabet: table

The table below is in text format so that it can be copied, found via search and read from a phone screen without having to zoom in on the image.

Punctuation marks and symbols

Second, the thing people stumble over most often: dictating an e-mail address or password. German character names:

The most common in practice: a full stop in an address — Punkt, the @ sign — At-Zeichen (or colloquially Klammeraffe), a hyphen — Bindestrich, an underscore — Unterstrich.

What has changed in the standard

The table above is the one that has been used in Germany for decades and that you will hear at the bank, at the doctor’s and at the Bürgeramt (citizens’ office). But it has a sequel that is worth knowing about.

On 13 May 2022 a new edition of the DIN 5009:2022 standard was published. In it, people’s names were replaced predominantly with the names of German cities: the historical reason is that in the 1930s, names that sounded Jewish were removed from the table, and this trace has remained in it to this day.

The new DIN 5009:2022 spelling table — city names

Here it is in full, in case the person on the line is spelling with cities and you want to check. The cities are said in full, umlauts with the word Umlaut before the city, and the letter Y was left without a city: there are practically no suitable German cities for it.

The practical conclusion is simple: Both tables are valid. Standards in Germany are applied voluntarily; there is no obligation to use the new table specifically. Authorities and emergency services continue to work with the familiar table of names — the one above. If your interlocutor suddenly dictates cities, you will understand anyway: they are naming them in full.

International version: the ICAO alphabet

If the conversation is in English, in aviation, with an international bank or with customer support, a different table is used — the ICAO alphabet, also known as the NATO alphabet. DIN 5009:2022 explicitly permits its use in Germany as well, if both parties have agreed to it.

There are no umlauts or “ß” in this table—that’s its main drawback for German.

How do I use this?

• It is not necessary to name the letter. The words alone are enough: for OLYA — “Otto, Ludwig, Ypsilon, Anton”. A German will understand straight away.
• Say in advance that you are going to spell something out: “Ich buchstabiere” (I’ll spell it out) — and the other person will reach for a pen.
• Double letters: “Doppel-L” (double L) or simply say the word twice.
• Do not replace umlauts with ae/oe/ue, if the document contains an umlaut: in government databases these are different entries, and it will have to be corrected later.
• Figures should be dictated one at a time. Especially 2 and 3 (zwei and drei) — these are the ones most frequently confused, so instead of zwei Germans often say zwo.

Where will this come in useful

• Opening a bank account - names and addresses are spelled out almost always.
• Useful telephone numbers in Germany — who to call if something happens.
• Vehicle registration — at the Zulassungsstelle (vehicle registration office), everything is dictated out loud.
• Sick leave — you have to inform the employer by phone.

Source: DIN — on the revision of the table to DIN 5009:2022. Checked in August 2026.