http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif... or any of those! :)

And the corresponding regexp ;)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressio...

Cringely mentioned in a column a while back that Qaddafi didn't particularly care:

“Spell it any way you like, ” he said (in pretty fair English, by the way — something else that seems to have strategically disappeared over the years). “All that matters is spelling it correctly in Arabic.”

http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/major-jolloud/

That site would be better if it was "cringe.ly"

People, have we already forgotten this? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressio...

This whole thing is hilarious, but probably useless

I did some analysis to figure out the consensus on his name

http://www.ecogito.net/anil/2011/02/how-do-you-spell-gaddafi...

I like the spelling Gadaffi, but here are atleast 112 different ways to spell his full name:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif...

Yes well. Looking at that list there seems to be something of a consensus on the -afi. Also just because 112 different spellings have been used, doesn't mean all 112 spellings are correct.

Anyway it's a fun idea and I'm just nit picking.

Define correctness in this context.

Any translation into english is going to be "wrong" in some aspect. If I were to define correctness, Gaddafi's name is spelt: قَذَّافِيّ‎

Anything else is just a translation and it all means the same, despite being different.

And while we are at it:

anything else is a _transliteration_

Well, I'm not really up for a tedious discussion over semantics; my initial post was actually a genuine query because I have never seen it spelt otherwise than Gaddafi or Qaddafi. Evidently it's actually a linguistic can of worms.

If I had to say, I guess correct would be the closest phonetic spelling to the Arabic, and as I understand that would be Gaddafi (in Libya) or Qaddafi (more generally). Or you could use what he has used himself in the past, which I have just discovered is: Gadhafi [0].

So without even nailing your colours to the mast over the correct definition of 'correct' in this context perhaps you might agree that Gadaffi is probably incorrect for any sensible definition of 'correct' in this context.

Or perhaps we could all agree to just call him 'that evil motherfucker from Libya'.

[0] http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/513/how-are-you-sup...

Since it is phonetic, it will differ from country to country since different languages map differently to phonemes.

Exactly, in France the most common form is Kadhafi