22.6 million ‘typos’ in the UK have ‘incorrect’ names, according to phones and laptops

• Some 41%^[1] of UK adults (22.6 million ‘typos’) – have experienced autocorrect changing their name, or their name being flagged as incorrect^[2]
• One in ten ‘typos’ say autocorrect changing their name is racist, I Am Not A Typo survey finds
• The first ever 100 Incorrect Baby Names book is out now, with billboard campaign
• IANAT campaign urges Big Tech to update ‘harmful’ systems to reflect today’s multicultural UK

Under strict embargo until Wednesday 7 May 2025 at 00h01 BST: A whopping 22.6 million ‘typos’ in the UK have experienced autocorrect changing their name, or their name being flagged as incorrect – as revealed by I Am Not A Typo (IANAT), the campaign calling on the Tech Giants to correct autocorrect and spell-check spell-check to make the technology more inclusive.

Among people who experience autocorrect changing their name or being flagged as incorrect, 61%^[3] say they feel negatively about it (whether that’s feeling uncomfortable, angry, disrespected, upset, excluded and/or resentful) – and one in ten say that the technology is ‘racist’^[4]. Over 4 in 10 (41%) say that technology companies need to update their naming dictionaries to better reflect today’s multicultural society.

Results of the survey, conducted by Censuswide, found that the phenomenon is most prevalent for 16-24s, with 62%^[5] considered ‘typos’ – and whose names appear in the pages of new book 100 Incorrect Baby Names. Of 16-24s, 58%^[6] know someone else who’s name is autocorrected or has been flagged as incorrect.

About the launch of the 100 Incorrect Baby Names book, Cathal Wogan, IANAT campaigner, says: “As the title suggests, this book contains 100 incorrect baby names. ‘But’, you might say, ‘a child’s name can’t be incorrect, surely’. Well, you’re right. However, your phone or your laptop might disagree with you.

“Every day, would-be parents leaf through baby name books to find the beautiful or inspiring names that they might give to their children. But if they come up with something too ethnic, too interesting, too culturally divergent, that name could be incorrect. Wrong. A typo. That’s why we have written 100 Incorrect Baby Names, and that’s why we want the Tech Giants to correct autocorrect and spell-check spell-check.”

A tongue-in-cheek billboard campaign hyping the launch of 100 Incorrect Baby Names says: “Naming your child is the most important thing you’ll ever do. So don’t f*ck it up.”

When the IANAT collective launched the campaign in March 2024, it found that 41% of all girls and boys names given to children in England and Wales were wrong, according to a standard English (UK) tech dictionary. When the collective ran the data in 2025 on the newest baby name registration data released by the Office of National Statistics, they found that 43% of names given to children in England and Wales were ‘typos’.

A whopping 2,227 out of 5,672 (39%) names given to girls in England and Wales (with minimum of three occurrences) were ‘typos’ in I Am Not A Typo’s testing. For boys, 2,930 out of 6,400 (46%) names were ‘typos’.

That’s 5,157 of 12,072 (43%) names given to babies born in 2023 that are ‘wrong’. While name dictionaries on our devices are evolving – ‘famous’ names like Dua, Keir and Rishi are no longer ‘typos’ – these popular names are*:

Top 10 ‘typo’ girls and boys born in England and Wales, 2023

Rank	Girls’ names	Occurrences	Boys’ names	Occurrences
1	Ottilie	662	Zaviyar	156
2	Ayzal	328	Zayaan	142
3	Aiza	159	Teddie	138
4	Anayah	113	Nikodem	131
5	Anabia	111	Rian	126
6	Imaan	104	Finnley	121
7	Fiadh	102	Azaan	110
8	Cataleya	101	Kiaan	110
9	Iyla	97	Macsen	108
10	Inaaya	94	Izhaan	106

Of the data, I Am Not A Typo’s Cathal says: “It’s clear that this is an issue that deeply affects and upsets millions of people. The number of typos is creeping up and while we’ve seen some famous names added to dictionaries, there’s still an enormous number of popular baby names that are still typos. Is Big Tech favouring the famous over the numerous? What we do know is that 43% of baby names are still typos, which means our job is not done yet. We’ve been left on read by the Tech Giants for one year. And we will not stop until the issue is solved.”