Qadaffhi's Name

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

If Qadaffhi’s names are spelled in numerous variants, how come other famous Arabs usually have only one or at worst three or four different spellings for their:

Saddam Hussein
Osama/Usama Bin Laden
Hosni Mubarak
Anwar Sadat
and etc.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

When one starts a thread, it’s helpful to provide a link to the column in questiton. In this case, despite the name being in the news today, the column was from 1986: How are you supposed to spell Muammar Gaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi? - The Straight Dope

The answer to your question is implied in the column:

The basic problem here is that (1) there is no generally accepted authority for romanizing Arabic names, and (2) the Mummer’s name contains several sounds that have no exact equivalent in English. In standard Arabic, the initial consonant qaf is pronounced like a throaty k, midway between the English k and the German ch, as in Bach. The second consonant, dhal — two dhals, actually — is pronounced like a double dh, which is similar to English th, only with the tongue pulled back a bit behind the teeth. Regional pronunciation differences further complicate matters. Libyans tend to pronounce qaf like a hard g, which has inspired a whole different set of spellings.

The basic transliteration to English problem is the qaf and the dhal sound. The names that you cite don’t use those letters, and so transliteration is easier and more stable.

[42fish]

Another factor noted in the column is:

“In most cases where there is doubt about how to spell somebody’s name, the usual journalistic practice is to accept the preference of the namee. For many years, however, the Mummer was too busy promoting global chaos to devote much time to the niceties of orthography. That changed in May, 1986…”
Since that was over a decade and a half after Mr. Q/K/G took power, there’d been plenty of time for alternative spellings to get entrenched.