I Am Not A Typo

I Am Not A Typo is a non-profit coalition convened by Blurred to tackle a hidden form of everyday bias: the way spellcheck treats millions of people’s names as “wrong”. When your name is always corrected, it’s not just an inconvenience. It’s a message. That you don’t belong.

We proved the scale of the problem with testing and official data. Analysing Office for National Statistics (ONS) baby name registrations, we found 41% of names were flagged as typos on devices - disproportionately affecting names of African and Asian origin, as well as Scottish, Welsh and Irish names. We turned this into a public inclusion issue with a simple creative truth: “I Am Not A Typo.” Launching with a donated billboard and an open letter to Big Tech, we combined data with lived experience and expert voices, building a coalition including BBC journalist Dhruti Shah and Professor Rashmi Dyal-Chand. The open letter doubled as a petition, generating 1,000+ signatures and personal testimonials. In 2025, we launched a subversive take on the traditional baby name book: 100 Incorrect Baby Names, sparking a new wave of campaigning. And after 18 months of tireless pro-bono work, the campaign achieved systems change. In December 2025, Microsoft agreed to change its UK dictionaries as a direct result of the campaign, ensuring its dictionary better represents the people living in modern, multicultural Britain. The error rate fell from 41% to around 2%... meaning millions of people are no longer typos.