Librarians are all too familiar with the profusion of guises in which the name of Libyan dictator — معمر القذافي in Arabic — may be encountered in the Latin alphabet. For the rest of the public out there it’s a mystery that still requires explanation:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2011/0222/Gaddafi-Kadafi-Qaddafi-What-s-the-correct-spelling
http://www.businessinsider.com/qaddafi-gaddafi-kadafi-qadaffi-libya-spelling-2011-2
As Col. Q has been much in the news of late, I wondered in an idle moment over the long weekend how articles listed on Google’s news site are spelling his name. (It was either that, or finishing the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle.)
For those who may be interested, this is what turned up (I may have missed some other possible spellings, and the numbers for frequency of citation are subject to change by the moment). For the sake of simplicity, I’m concentrating on his surname — قذافي in Arabic — leaving out the permutations occasioned by the presence or absence of the Arabic article (al- ) and by the variant spellings of his given name.
LCNAF (81068638)’s preferred form of entry — Qaddafi — was the 8th most popular form in the news, used in 1,730 news articles.
Other variant forms listed in LCNAF, in decreasing order of popularity in news articles:
/form of name/ /# of news stories/
Gaddafi 22,898
Gadhafi 15,496
Gadafi 13,705
Kadhafi 12,625
Kaddafi 11,975
Gheddafi 5,970
Khadafi 1,987
*Qaddafi 1,730
Qadhafi 389
Ghadafi 298
Khaddafi 193
Khadafy 128
Ghaddafi 124
Kadaffi 103
Qadafi 41
Gathafi 31
Qathafi 5
Kazzafi 3
Ghaddafy 1
Qadhdhafi 1
Among variant forms I encountered that are not currently listed in NCAF:
Gadaffi 370
Khadaffi 222
Ghadaffi 64
Gadafy 48
Qadafy 44
Khadhafi 33
Khadaffy 9
Quaddafi 8
Gaddafy 7
Kadafy 4
Qadaffy 3
Geddafi 3
Ghedaffy 3
Kheddafi 1
May it all end well, inshallah.
András Riedlmayer
Fine Arts Library
Harvard University