How to Write Your Name in Morse Code

Writing your name in Morse code takes three steps. Look up each letter on the chart. Put one space between letters. Put a slash between words. MARIA is -- .- .-. .. .-. JUAN is .--- ..- .- -.. AHMED is .- .... -- . -... That is the whole method.

Morse has no capital and small letters. There is one pattern per letter, so BEN, Ben and ben are all -... . -.. Charts are printed in capitals out of habit, nothing more.

Two conventions before the chart. Letters inside a word are separated by a single space and words by a slash, so .--- --- .... -. / ... -- .. - .... is JOHN SMITH. And write Morse with a real full stop and a real hyphen from your keyboard. A middot or a typographic dash looks tidier and breaks the moment you paste it anywhere, which is the first thing anyone does with their own name once they have it.

Hearing beats reading here. MorseLab turns any text into a tone, a torch flash or a vibration, free and offline.

The 26 letters you need

This is International Morse code, the version set out in ITU-R Recommendation M.1677-1. It is the only one still in use.

Copy this block if you would rather work from a plain list:

A .-      N -.
B -...    O ---
C -.-.    P .--.
D -..     Q --.-
E .       R .-.
F ..-.    S ...
G --.     T -
H ....    U ..-
I ..      V ...-
J .---    W .--
K -.-     X -..-
L .-..    Y -.--
M --      Z --..

Nothing in the letters runs longer than four signals. E is one dot and T is one dash, which is why short names come out so quickly.

Three steps, worked through

Take SOFIA. Write the name out one letter at a time, look each one up, then join the results with a single space.

S  ...
O  ---
F  ..-.
I  ..
A  .-

SOFIA = ... --- ..-. .. .-

Add a surname and the only change is the slash. A slash means a word gap, and a word gap is longer than a letter gap. The two are not interchangeable.

MARIA SANTOS = -- .- .-. .. .- / ... .- -. - --- ...

Middle names, second surnames and a full four-part name all work the same way. Every space in the written name becomes a slash.

JOSE MARIA REYES SANTOS
.--- --- ... . / -- .- .-. .. .- / .-. . -.-- . ... / ... .- -. - --- ...

Names already written out

If yours is here, take it. If it is not, the letters above will get you there in under a minute.

Double letters, and the gap that carries the meaning

This is where most hand-written names go wrong. The gap between two letters is part of the code, not typography. Lose it and you have sent a different name.

ANNA is .- -. -. .-. The two Ns need a real gap between them. Run them together and -. plus -. becomes -.-., which is C, and the name reads ACA.

The EMMA case is the useful one. Four dashes in a row is not a letter, not a digit and not a prosign. It is simply outside the code. A reader would stop and ask you to repeat.

The same rule explains the one Morse string everybody has seen. SOS is a prosign, sent as one unbroken run, ...---..., with no letter gaps inside it. Written as the three separate letters S, O and S it is a longer, different signal. It also does not stand for "Save Our Souls" or "Save Our Ship"; those were invented afterwards. The pattern was chosen because it is unmistakable. More on that in the SOS explainer.

Apostrophes, hyphens and initials

Punctuation has its own patterns, and they are sent as characters, with the normal three-unit letter gap either side. A hyphen in a name is not a word break.

O'BRIEN     --- .----. -... .-. .. . -.
ANNE-MARIE  .- -. -. . -....- -- .- .-. .. .
J.R.        .--- .-.-.- .-. .-.-.-

If your name or handle carries a number, every digit is exactly five signals: 1 is .----, 5 is ....., 7 is --..., 0 is -----. They are set out with the rest of the marks in the numbers and punctuation guide.

Names the 26 letters cannot spell

The standard covers the 26 Latin letters, the ten digits and 16 punctuation marks, and nothing beyond that. It has no pattern for an accented letter, and none for Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Thai or Devanagari script. So write the name the way you would type it on an English keyboard, then encode that.

German speakers often prefer MUELLER, -- ..- . .-.. .-.. . .-., because that is how the name is spelled without the umlaut. Either is readable. Pick one and stay with it, since a Morse reader has no way to ask.

Romanised spelling is a choice, not a rule, and different systems give different letters for the same name. That does not matter here. Morse carries the letters you hand it.

Saying your name out loud

Nobody who sends Morse says "dot dot dash". They say dit and dah, because those two syllables carry the rhythm. A dit is short. A dah is three times as long. Saying your name that way, out loud, is the fastest route from reading the code to hearing it.

SOFIA is di-di-dit, dah-dah-dah, di-di-dah-dit, di-dit, di-dah. Say it at a steady pace with a clear pause between letters and you have sent the name, even without a key or a phone. Learning characters as sounds rather than shapes is the whole trick, and it is set out in how to read Morse code by sound.

How long your name takes to send

Morse is measured in units, where one unit is the length of a dot.

That ratio, 1 : 3 : 1 : 3 : 7, is fixed. A dash is not "a bit longer" than a dot; it is exactly three times as long. So you can add up any name. Here is SOFIA:

The length of a dot in seconds is 1.2 divided by the speed in words per minute. Multiply that by 45 and you have the time.

MARIA SANTOS comes to 95 units once the seven-unit word gap is counted, so it runs 5.7 seconds at 20 WPM and 9.5 seconds at 12. As a rough guide, a five-letter name lands somewhere between 35 and 60 units. The full arithmetic, including why the reference word PARIS, counted with the word gap that follows it, is exactly 50 units, is in the timing and WPM guide.

Sending it, not just writing it

A name on paper is half of it. The other half is the sound, and there are four easy ways to produce it without a radio or a key.

• Tone. Hum or whistle a steady note, short for a dit and three times as long for a dah.
• Light. A torch or a phone screen, flashed on the same timing. Long distance, no noise. There is more in the flashlight guide.
• Tapping. Knuckle on a table, or a finger on someone's arm. Tapping is harder than it sounds, because a tap has no length, so you have to carry the dot and dash in the gaps instead. The tapping and vibration guide covers the trick.
• Vibration. A phone can buzz your name at an exact ratio, which is the one method that never drifts.

Writing your name down is the easy half. Hearing it is what makes it stick, and that is why I built MorseLab: type a name and it plays back as a tone, a screen flash, a flashlight blink or a vibration, at a speed you choose, offline and with no account. It also holds the chart, the prosigns and the Q-codes, so you can check a letter without leaving the app.

Common mistakes

Sending letters with no gap. By far the most common error, and the reason ANNA arrives as ACA. Between letters, wait three units. Between words, seven.

Using a middot or an em dash for the code. They look neat, and they break every translator you paste them into. A full stop and a hyphen from your own keyboard, nothing else.

Treating the slash as a character. The slash is a writing convention for a word gap. Do not send the slash pattern -..-. between the parts of a name unless you actually mean the punctuation mark.

Adding a full stop at the end. Names do not need one. If you send .-.-.- after your name, you have sent a full stop, and a reader will write it down.

Assuming an accented letter has a code. It does not, in the international standard. Drop the accent and send the plain letter.

Expecting to read it back straight away. You can write your name in Morse in two minutes. Recognising it by ear when someone sends it to you is a different skill and takes weeks of short daily practice. Nobody gets there in an afternoon.

Questions people ask

How do I write my name in Morse code?

Look up each letter on the chart above, separate letters with one space, and separate words with a slash. LIAM is .-.. .. .- --. LIAM CHEN is .-.. .. .- -- / -.-. .... . -.. Case makes no difference, because Morse has only one form of each letter.

What happens if my name has a double letter?

Nothing special, as long as you keep the gap. ANNA is .- -. -. .- with a full letter gap between the two Ns. Merge them and you get -.-., which is C, so the name becomes ACA. EMMA is . -- -- .-; merged, the two Ms make four dashes, which is not a character at all.

Is there really a space between letters in Morse code?

Yes, and it is measured. Three units between letters, seven between words, one between the signals inside a single letter. On paper those become a space and a slash. Spacing is not decoration; it is half of what distinguishes one message from another.

How do I write a name with an accent, like José or Müller?

Drop the accent and send the plain letter. José goes out as JOSE, .--- --- ... .. Müller goes out as MULLER, or as MUELLER if you prefer the unaccented German spelling. The international standard defines patterns for the 26 Latin letters only.

Can I write a name in Japanese, Arabic, Chinese or Nepali in Morse code?

Not in those scripts. Write the name in Latin letters first, then encode it. ゆき becomes YUKI, -.-- ..- -.- ... أحمد becomes AHMED, .- .... -- . -... Any romanisation you would use in a passport works fine.

How long does it take to send a name?

Add up the units and divide. SOFIA is 45 units, and a dot is 1.2 divided by the speed in words per minute, so at 20 WPM the name takes 2.7 seconds and at 5 WPM it takes 10.8. Short names with an E or a T in them come out fastest.

Can I tap my name instead of sending a tone?

Yes, and it is a good party trick. Because a tap has no length of its own, put the difference into the pause after it: a short pause follows a dot, a longer one follows a dash, and a longer one again separates letters. Steady beats matter more than speed.

Can I learn to send my name by ear in a day?

You can memorise the letters in your own name in a few minutes, and the whole alphabet in an afternoon. Copying by ear is the slow part and takes weeks of short daily sessions. Two methods help, and they are often confused with each other: Koch is about the order you add characters, at full speed from the start, and Farnsworth is about stretching the gaps while the characters stay fast. They change different things, so they combine. The difference is set out in Koch and Farnsworth, and the honest timeline is in can you learn Morse code in a day.

Want to try it now? MorseLab is free on iPhone and Android.

Keep reading

• The Morse code alphabet chart
• Common words in Morse code
• I love you in Morse code
• Morse code numbers and punctuation
• How a Morse code translator works