How do you get dictation to spell names correctly?

Dictation misspells a name when the engine has never learned it. The engine then writes the ordinary words that sound closest, and it can repeat that mistake each time you say the name. The reliable fixes are to add the name to a word list if your app has one, and to correct it once in review if it does not. A word list helps, but it is a nudge rather than a guarantee, so check every occurrence. The wider set of causes is in the dictation mistakes guide, within the dictation topic.

Add the name to a word list if your app has one

Some desktop dictation products let you teach the software a word. Nuance's help for Dragon for PC describes adding a word by specifying the word and its spoken form, and optionally training Dragon on its pronunciation ¹. The same help describes a Spelling Window: you say "Spell That", then spell the word or phrase, which lets you add a word by its letters ². Menu paths differ between versions and editions, so check the help for your own copy of Dragon.

Free built-in tools are different. The Mac Dictation help page we read describes choosing an alternative for an underlined word, or typing or dictating the correct text, and it does not describe a custom word list ( Apple's Use Dictation on Mac). If your Mac or Windows app has no word list, use the review method below.

A word list shifts the odds but does not guarantee the spelling

The developer features for cloud speech services show how much a word list can do. Google says that model adaptation by default has a relatively small effect on recognition, especially for one-word phrases ³. Its boost setting increases the recognition model's bias toward some phrases more than others ⁴. Microsoft's Azure AI Speech phrase list has a weight that you set within a range of 0.0 to 2.0 ⁵.

These are developer settings. They show that cloud products offer the feature, not that your desktop app has a field for your surname. For a name that matters, do not rely on the list alone. Read the output every time.

If there is no word list, fix the name in review

1. Dictate the name as you normally would, inside a sentence, so the rest of the sentence stays intact.
2. Finish the passage, then search for each wrong form in your editor. Use find and replace to change every occurrence at once.
3. Read the results for the name in each place, because the same name can come out two different ways in one document.
4. Add the name once if the app has a personal dictionary or an add-word option, so that the software learns it for later sessions.

Saying the name inside a full sentence also helps. Nuance advises dictating in longer phrases rather than single words, because hearing a whole phrase helps the software predict what you say ⁶. That is vendor guidance, not an independent test. The method for sentence-level habits is in how to improve dictation accuracy.

It depends on the product, the name and the stakes

• Desktop app or cloud service. A word list in a desktop app is a convenience. A word list in a cloud speech service is a developer setting that you tune in code, and its effect is small by default.
• A name that matches a common word. The engine is most likely to write the common word, so proofread those names more closely than unusual ones. This is a judgment from the mechanism, not a measured rate.
• A name that must be exact. For a legal, medical or formal document, check the spelling against the source record, such as an email, a contract or an official form, rather than against what you remember. The check takes less time than an error in a finished document.

The terms are defined in the custom vocabulary and homophone glossary entries. To see how a word list works on a Mac, read how to add custom words to Mac dictation. For the errors that look correct on screen, see how to proofread dictated text. For a name that comes out with a filter applied, see why talk to text censors words.