I Am Not A Typo campaign launches first-ever 100 Incorrect Baby Names book and billboard

I Am Not A Typo (IANAT), the award-winning campaign calling on the tech giants to correct autocorrect and spell-check spell-check to make the technology more inclusive, launches the 100 Incorrect Baby Names book with a billboard campaign.

Powered by a collective of UK communications, marketing and creative pros, a tongue-in-cheek accompanying 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.”

Cathal Wogan, IANAT campaigner and senior consulting director at Blurred, 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.”

I Am Not a Typo is a collective aiming to create social change so no one feels like an oversight.

It looks at the link between identity and technology and challenges tech giants to adapt. It aims to create a world that sees and supports all of us.  It launched its first UK-based campaign in March 2024, challenging tech giants to change their name dictionaries so that all first names are treated equally by our technology.

The group led by a core team at Blurred – a communications consultancy – and powered by a network of collaborators carving out time to drive it forward, including: designers Chris Harman and Lee Freeman at Made by Parent, Ben O’Brien at Ben Draws, Leah Ivens at Infinity Outdoor, Richard Fingland at Park Communications Ltd, freelance creative director Alex Cooper, as well as Professor Rashmi Dyal-Chand and journalist Dhruti Shah, and several other independent supporters who wish to see this inclusivity issue tackled – not written off as a tech quirk to be ignored by those who face it.

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 IANAT’s new national survey.

I Am Not a Typo is a collective aiming to create social change so no one feels like an oversight.