# What's the deal with people who spell Barack as "Barak?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 4, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527 "2009-10-04T07:17:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/1 "2009-10-04T07:17:50Z")
For some reason, it seems to be really common to find Barack Obama’s first name misspelled as “Barak.” A few typos are to be expected, but I’ve seen it almost exclusively on anti-Obama web sites. Is there some kind of coded significance to to it, or do a lot of right wingers just not know how to spell? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/2 "2009-10-04T07:58:22Z")
I’m pretty sure it’s just a mistake. Barak is the Hebrew word for “lightning”, and also a fairly common modern Jewish name. It appears in the Bible (in the story of Barak and Deborah, in the Book of Judges) and is used both as a first name and as a surname. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/3 "2009-10-04T08:07:04Z")
Umm…they don’t know how to spell the President’s name? Doesn’t Barack mean blessed? The Hebrew version being Baruch. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/4 "2009-10-04T10:06:47Z")
Maybe they think it sounds more Arabic and Muslim? ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/5 "2009-10-04T10:21:05Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > Maybe they think it sounds more Arabic and Muslim? I think that’s it. Regular English words which end in a ‘k’ preceded by a short vowel, generally have a ‘c’ in between. So the ‘Barak’ spelling looks more foreign. People who think of him as “not a real American” may choose this spelling either subconsciously or deliberately to subtly emphasise his African ancestry. I expect it’s the same people who like to insert the ‘Hussein’ in contexts where you wouldn’t normally spell out a person’s full middle name. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/6 "2009-10-04T11:55:51Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > I think that’s it. Regular English words which end in a ‘k’ preceded by a short vowel, generally have a ‘c’ in between. So the ‘Barak’ spelling looks more foreign. People who think of him as “not a real American” may choose this spelling either subconsciously or deliberately to subtly emphasise his African ancestry. > > I expect it’s the same people who like to insert the ‘Hussein’ in contexts where you wouldn’t normally spell out a person’s full middle name. I think you’re over-analysing it. I recall having to double-check the spelling before I became familiar with his name. Most people wouldn’t bother, and it’s a perfectly understandable mistake to make. Not everything is politically motivated. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/7 "2009-10-04T12:22:40Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I think you’re over-analysing it. I recall having to double-check the spelling before I became familiar with his name. Most people wouldn’t bother, and it’s a perfectly understandable mistake to make. > > Not everything is politically motivated. I don’t think it’s overanalyzing it - to me Barak sounds more Arabic than Barack. Not much more to it than that. As the OP points out, it’s mainly conservative blogs and websites that call him Barak, usually adding his middle name to make it “Barak Hussein Obama”, emphasizing that they think he’s a foreigner or a Muslim. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/8 "2009-10-04T12:56:49Z")
Sometimes a cigar is just a Akhbar. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/9 "2009-10-04T13:05:31Z")
You’re reading too much into it. It’s just a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/10 "2009-10-04T13:43:37Z")
From [TechCrunch](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/can-you-spell-barack-obama/): > [@](#): > > Many Americans and others are still unable to spell Barack Obama’s first name correctly. At least that is the conclusion of the folks at GooseGrade, a service that allows readers to post corrections for grammar, spelling and factual errors on blogs and other online media outlets using a free widget. > > GooseGrade did some quick and dirty research and found at least 60 million pages on the Internet with Obama’s first name misspelled. “Barak” is the most common misspelling, followed in close second by “Barrak”, and finally “Barrack”. It’s one “r”, a “c” and a “k,” for those still having trouble. The startup even counted web sites intentionally placing misspelled ‘meta-tags’ or keywords into the site code of their pages to pick up traffic from misspelled searches. Unless someone is going to come up with some evidence that the majority of those 60,000,000 pages are conservative blogs I’m going to stick with spelling error. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/11 "2009-10-04T15:55:09Z")
Plenty of people are still messing up Adolph [sic] Hitler’s name. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/12 "2009-10-04T15:56:58Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I think you’re over-analysing it. I recall having to double-check the spelling before I became familiar with his name. Most people wouldn’t bother, and it’s a perfectly understandable mistake to make. > > Not everything is politically motivated. I’ll admit that before I became a big-time supporter, I misspelled his name as “Barak” too. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/13 "2009-10-04T16:02:37Z")
Well, I was reasonably familiar with the story of Deborah and Barak from Judges, so when then-Senator Obama’s name was first brought up, I assumed the “Barack” spelling was an error for the “good Biblical name.” To be honest, I never even thought of any Islamic/Arabic connection whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/14 "2009-10-04T17:36:44Z")
I just misspelled it in a MPSIMS post, and it was just a simple spelling mistake. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/15 "2009-10-04T17:41:04Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > I don’t think it’s overanalyzing it - to me Barak sounds more Arabic than Barack. Not much more to it than that. As the OP points out, it’s mainly conservative blogs and websites that call him Barak, usually adding his middle name to make it “Barak Hussein Obama”, emphasizing that they think he’s a foreigner or a Muslim. Although the OP “points out” that it’s mainly conservative blogs, this is GQ and I’d like to see a cite for that before I accept it as fact. So any conclusion based on that “fact” is suspect, in this forum. I know I used to spell it Barak, and I voted for him. To me, a word with a “ck” in it is more likely to be Anglo Saxon in origin, and “Barack” is not Anglo Saxon in origin. Not to mention that Barack Obama Sr. was born into a muslim family and it is a name which derives from Arabic (B-R-K), even though the president is not a muslim or an Arab. ---
**Author:** ![akennett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee59a6/32.png) [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/16 "2009-10-04T17:42:03Z")
I just figured they’re all David Eddings fans. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/17 "2009-10-04T18:39:19Z")
Maybe it’s simply that conservatives are more likely to use his first name, while liberals simply refer to him as “President Obama”? ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/18 "2009-10-04T19:00:51Z")
And the winner is: [http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en\_GB&word1=Barak&word2=Barack](http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Barak&word2=Barack) ---
**Author:** ![Telperien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/19 "2009-10-04T19:15:02Z")
Some people aren’t good spellers of a name that is still pretty unfamiliar to them, and some are doing it purposefully to show a lack of respect. However, telling the difference between the two is not always as easy as one might think. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527/20 "2009-10-04T19:56:51Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > For some reason, it seems to be really common to find Barack Obama’s first name misspelled as “Barak.” A few typos are to be expected, but I’ve seen it almost exclusively on anti-Obama web sites. Even a cursory search on this site shows many, many people misspelling it “Barak,” \*\*including supporters. \*\* [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-people-who-spell-barack-as-barak/512527.md?page=2)