NATO Phonetic Alphabet or Spelling Alphabet

A phonetic alphabet is a list of words used to identify letters in a message transmitted by radio or telephone. Spoken words from an approved list are substituted for letters. This practice helps to prevent confusion between similar sounding letters, such as “m” and “n”, and to clarify communications that may be garbled during transmission.

Though often called “phonetic alphabets”, spelling alphabets are not in fact phonetic in the sense that linguists use the term, and they do not have any association with phonetic transcription systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The code words chosen to represent some letters have changed since the phonetic alphabet was introduced. When these changes occur, they are made by international agreement. The current phonetic alphabet was adopted in 1957.

Letter	1913	1927	1938	World War II	1957-Present	Signal Flag
A	Able	Affirmative	Affirm	Afirm (Able)	Alfa
B	Boy	Baker	Baker	Baker	Bravo
C	Cast	Cast	Cast	Charlie	Charlie
D	Dog	Dog	Dog	Dog	Delta
E	Easy	Easy	Easy	Easy	Echo
F	Fox	Fox	Fox	Fox	Foxtrot
G	George	George	George	George	Golf
H	Have	Hypo	Hypo	How	Hotel
I	Item	Interrogatory	Int	Int (Item)	India
J	Jig	Jig	Jig	Jig	Juliet
K	King	King	King	King	Kilo
L	Love	Love	Love	Love	Lima
M	Mike	Mike	Mike	Mike	Mike
N	Nan	Negative	Negat	Negat (Nan)	November
O	Oboe	Option	Option	Option (Oboe)	Oscar
P	Pup	Preparatory	Prep	Prep (Peter)	Papa
Q	Quack	Quack	Queen	Queen	Quebec
R	Rush	Roger	Roger	Roger	Romeo
S	Sail	Sail	Sail	Sugar	Sierra
T	Tare	Tare	Tare	Tare	Tango
U	Unit	Unit	Unit	Uncle	Uniform
V	Vice	Vice	Victor	Victor	Victor
W	Watch	William	William	William	Whiskey
X	X-ray	X-ray	X-ray	X-ray	X-ray
Y	Yoke	Yoke	Yoke	Yoke	Yankee
Z	Zed	Zed	Zed	Zebra	Zulu

This should help answer the questions:

What is the phonetic alphabet?
What is the spelling alphabet?
What is the purpose of the phonetic alphabet?