A couple of weeks ago, I had to give out my full name over the phone. It went a little like this:

“...OK, so I’ll need your name…”
“Gregg Koval”
“How do you spell that?”
“Gregg, G-R-E-G-G”
“G-R-E-G?”
“No, 2 Gs at the end.”
“OK, so G-R-E-G-G?”
“Yup, just like how Gregg Allman spells his.”
“Who?” Pause. “Last Name?”
“Koval, K-O-V-A-L.”
“C-O-V…”
“No, K-O…” “Sorry about that, it’s hard to hear in here. K-O…”
“V..”
“B”?
“No, V as in Victor.”
“Oh, V.”
“A-L”
“L?”
“L”
“So, it’s K-O-V-A-L-L?”
“No, just one L at the end.”
“OK, let’s see if I got it; K-O-V as in Victor-A-L”
“That’s it.”
“OK, do you have an e-mail address?”

I’m sure many of you have gone through the same thing with more than 5 letters in each of your names.  Personally, I’m tired of using Victor for V.  For one, I don’t know anyone named or who has named any of their kids Victor.

So what I thought would be fun for me, and who knows, fun for you, would be to use different words for common usages of letters.  For example, from now on, I’m going to spell my name over the phone like this: K-O-V as in “level”-A-L.

See?  Pretty fun.  If I wanted to get really elaborate I could say: K as in “knife”, O as in “moon”, V as in “level”, A as in “variance” and L as in “family”.

So now it's your turn.  Start spelling your name, and after every letter, say "as in..." and then use the chart to your right to pick the word. Enjoy.