RHAP: We Know Survivor - The Most Outlandish Survivor Misspellings of All Time

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

The Most Outlandish Survivor Misspellings of All Time Also available on YouTube! Spelling blunders take center stage as Rob Cesternino and Brandon Donlon get together for a hilarious trip through some of the most outrageous voting mistakes in Survivor history. Survivor fans, get ready—this special deep dive looks back on 51 seasons of the show to spotlight epic Tribal Council misspellings, from single-letter slip-ups to wild reimaginings of castaway names. Rob and Brandon aren’t just laughing at the chaos—they’re examining what these blunders say about the game’s social complexities and the pressure of voting when alliances and nerves are on the line. On this episode, Survivor’s ever-evolving cast of characters is the real star, as Rob and Brandon break down infamous voting moments that include miswritten votes for Jenna Lewis, Lyrsa, Venus, and even Lauren O’Connell. The hosts highlight Sue Hawk’s creative spellings in Survivor Borneo, debate whether some votes were accidental or intentional trolls, and reminisce about players who seemed to struggle with names more than strategy. Drawing from decades of gameplay, they even talk about recent misspellings, referencing the confusion around Eric (or Arik) and the creative vote for Lindsay as “Linze”—possibly the farthest a castaway has strayed from an actual name while voting for the right person. Rob and Brandon muse on whether misspellings are genuine mistakes or a subtle part of Survivor strategy, and how producers might enjoy the added chaos. Could intentional misspelling be used for social play, or is it just a sign of Tribal Council tension? Tune in as Survivor super fans and casuals alike will love dissecting the intersection of comedy, chaos, and gameplay at the voting booth! Chapters: 0:00 Egregious Survivor Name Misspellings Intro 0:38 Brandon Donlon Joins to Reveal the List 1:19 “Eric” Inspires a Deep Dive 3:37 Sue Hawk Spells Jenna as “Jeanne” 5:47 Voting Booths Lack Name Lists 7:27 Yul’s Name Gets Silent “H” Treatment 8:43 Q Votes “Venise” for Venus 10:24 Ralph Votes “Phile” for Phillip 12:24 Joaquin Misspells Carolyn as “Sherilyn” 14:32 Survivor Words That Sound Like Names 16:45 Big Wendy’s Persistent “Lorine” Misspelling 18:32 Ralph Triumphs with “Stifinie” 20:05 Roxroy’s “Linze” Tops the List 22:05 What Earns the Title “Most Egregious” 23:11 Wrap Up and Joe Hunter Preview Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

Hey everybody, what's going on? Rob Cisterino back here for some fun talk about Survivor here before we get to this next week's episode. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the most egregious, try to spell that, spelling, voting mistakes in Survivor history, and with me to reveal his list of the 10 worst Survivor Spelling Mistakes. Here he is, it's Brandon Donlin. Brandon, how are you? I'm so good. Both your name and my name are normally spelled the same. Although Rob did, there was a Rob with two bees once, which I guess is a little bit different.

All Brandon's are pretty consistent. Right. And there was a Brando and there was a Randin and there was a Brendan. So, yeah, we've seen all sorts of variations on your name. For a while, there was a Brando, Brando, Branden, Randon Whiplash. Rando never got cast. I thought Rando for 48 would have happened. Plenty of Randos have been cast,

but not the proper name. Yes, Brandon, how are you doing today? I'm so good. We were left inspired by Eric, also known as Aric, this week, where we thought, you know what, why don't I take the Big Brother time machine?

That table's not being used anymore. So why don't I take it into Survivor's Pass? Yeah. And find 10 of the most egregious spelling mistakes. These mistakes are also, like, not close to the name. There are some mistakes that are a digit or two off. These are not close. Yeah.

Single diggy. Single diggy. Yeah. Some quadruple diggy mistakes on this list, but we will see. Okay. I believe I had one misspelling in my own. survivor history, and it was an intentional misspelling of the late great Roger Sexton. I spelled his name intentionally like Roger Bingham because he did not like Roger Bingham.

And so I wanted to spell it, R-O-D-G-E-R. Is he the only person globally to dislike Roger Bingham, do you think? Look, Roger Sexton was an interesting guy. He had a lot of strong opinions, and he did not really. really like, he really didn't like that he couldn't swim. That was like his number one issue with Roger Bingham. Yeah, Roger Sexton didn't like a ton of people. He talked about a couple.

Didn't like a ton of people, didn't like a ton of things. But we are not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about some of the wildest misspellings that you've gone through 51 seasons. Did Eric voting for Eric, did that make the top 10 list? It did not make the top 10. And let me tell you why. It's a one digit off, but like, Krasta, Ralph from Survivor, Redemption Island Boats for Krasta. It is just one letter.

We can figure it out with one letter. The list I compiled is a combination of this is no longer the person's name. Multiple letters off. Yeah, this is so many letters that are different that it makes the list. And we have a completed list here. All right. So, go ahead. What's number 10?

The number 10 worst misspelling in Survivor history. You just had a, what sounded like an eight-hour conversation with Sue Hawke, this is Sue Hawke voting for Jenna Lewis, and she spells it like Gene. Gene from what I played with. Yeah, she was ahead of it. She took the Big Brother Time Capsule also, and she voted for Gene. So if you're listening to the podcast version of this,

she spells Jenna J-E-A-N-N-E. J-E-A-N-N-E, a different name that doesn't sound like Jenna. That's a totally, now Sue was freestyling a lot of the time when she was voting in Survivor Borneo. Famously, she has Sona, S-O-U-N-A when voting for Sonia. She smells Jervis, I believe, G-E-R-V-I-S. This is Sue's only appearance on the list. You would think in 26 years, like, you would go into the booth and there would be, like, on the table, the name of everybody

that is on the show. Like, you would think, it's a lot of them you see it, like in challenges also, but you would think that they would have it somewhere. It's nowhere. I mean, I've been in that booth pretty recently.

Only twice was I in there, but I looked around. Really, only once was I in there. They do not have, I think they like this. I think they like when people messed up. They like it. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't have a take if they like it or not. You would think it would be something that they could fix. but okay, yeah, Gene does not sound like Jenna. It doesn't sound like Jenna. What's interesting is watch the 51 Tribal Council from this past episode two is they show the Eric with an A vote,

Oric, and they show Carter like kind of smirking, which is like editing thing. All of these clips that will show you just the screenshot of, there's no reaction. They're not played for laughs. Yeah. They're just one of many votes. The Carter thing this week, it feels like a troll.

And I think that Carter is a little bit of a troll. So I think that he did it on purpose. But here that is, I think Sue Hawke is doing her best. Bless her heart. She's doing your best. And so is our number nine recipient. This is, I believe, Carl voting for Learza, but he spells it, L-Y-R-E-C-A. L-R-E-C-A.

L-R-E-C-A. Not Lyrica from Big Brother. Yeah. Yeah. She's thinking about moving in with Rome, but Lyrica is a different thing. Lyrica is an extra syllable. Yeah, Learsa. And the sea is really, it's a soft sea in Learissa.

Yeah, I guess you could take a liberty to say this is Learosa, but I read it as Lyrica. There was a Survivor Instagram post from, I believe, six months ago, where Survivor, highlighted a couple of the misspellings in the history of the show. Yeah. And Learza commented and said, where's Lyrica? Where's Lyrica? It's made an impression on Leica, for sure. Yeah, that C at the end, the CA, you don't really hear that as a soft C in any names like

Monica, Erica. No. You're doing the Mambo number five a little bit. Learca did make the Mambo number five. Lyrica fits better. Lyrica in my life. That sense. Don't let lyric get.

wind of that. Lyrical make that TikTok tonight. Lou Begg's daughter is going to be on the next season of Big Brother. I would be so down. There's so many jokes. Moving with a guy named Greece. That's

Athens. Athens better, yeah. Athens. That's, we're writing fanfic. But here we have Lyrica, RIP, Lyrica. Okay. All right. Number eight. Let's see. Here's Yule with a

couple extra letters. We know Yul. If you're on Reddit, you know that Yul is spelled Y-U-L, but this is Y-U-E-H-L. I believe this is a vote from Adam Gentry or Nate. Adam Gentry. I'm unclear which one. This one I could kind of see. I think that phonetically, I think that he got it, Y-U-E-H-L. So I could kind of see this one that, you know, it's Y-U-L, but I think that if you read Y, U-E-H-L, I mean,

it still is pronounced Yule. It's not like that Y-L is such a common name that I was like, of course it's Y-U-L. It's Y-U-L.

I would think that you would maybe do Y-U-L-E, but the H is like, like a Y-L-T-E T-E-L-E-E. It's almost like

he cooked too hard with the-E thing. He added a silent letter there that did not need to be added. Yeah, which is like almost very smart.

It's a very intelligent inferring that, oh, maybe there's a silent H in this way. Adding the silent age for Adam. And if you're wondering what Adam Gentry is up to now, don't Google it. Don't. We'll leave it alone. To you or I.

We'll leave it alone. Like the silent age. How about our next one? This is Venice, a Q vote for Venus that is spelled V-E-N-I-S-E. Yeah, Venice also could date Lyrica. So Venus, yeah, is spelled exactly like the planet. So you would think that Venus would be a word that you should be able to spell. V, he spells it like Denise with a V.

Did he think that her name... He spells it like... Yeah, it's not Venus. It's Venice. Which you can kind of see. If you're watching the video, there is... It looks like Q did write Venice with a C and then kind of threw a little line on the C to make it an S. The C is distinctly darker in the S.

So he might have second-guessed it. Do you think that Q... potentially this is also a troll job where that he is trying to get her annoyed and spell her name wrong uh that's interesting i'd have to think about who else q voted like he has a jillinsky vote a jesvote i don't remember him doing that but i guess he didn't dislike those people as much his own name is q that's easy to spell who has the hardest name to spell on season six of the traders who has the hardest name to spell I guess Bronwyn is maybe a challenge.

That's just an unfamiliar word. See some good ones. The guy Ian, who's the Love Island announcer, is I-A-I-N, which nobody's going to nail it. That's going to throw them off, I think. Isn't that how Ian Zering is spelled, or is he Ian traditionally? You know what? I would have to look that up. I think it's Ian traditionally, but it's pronounced I-N.

Sure. Which is like, is he Ian on the season six of the traders? Ian. Do you know that? I don't know if, I believe it's Ian Sterling. Ian's Sterling, well. We'll learn that when we get there. There's an E in Venice. Two V-E's in Venice. Okay. How about? I did

the Survivor 50 files, but Ralph, when he voted for the ending of Survivor Redemption Island, he voted for file. P-H-I-L-E. Yes. Okay. What is this? Number six on the list? I believe so. Okay. This is such an interesting one because no, but Philip never goes by Phil in the entire

series run of Redemption Island. So he's always Philip. So this is, and this is not even how you spell Phil. It's P-H-I-L-E. No, this is file.

Like, Cinephile or audio file. No other stuff. But file, for sure. That's a good one. And I guess we don't have too many big misspellings in the final tribal council? No.

You've got 39 days to know how to spell the word if you make it in the traditional era. And people wrote his name down a lot, Philip Shepard. People wrote his name down a lot. And subtle nod here to Eric Reichenback, who when he votes Philip out of survivor Karamohan, he writes, F-I-L-L-U-P, fill up. Yeah. But he does clarify in a Reddit comment, he knew. He knew.

he knew he's been known yeah now spoiler alert for the top half um this isn't ralph's only vote oh wow ralph kaiser r ip r ip which which is spelt when he was here uh as it sounds rip r i h p siling h yeah r i p um how about uh we're taking it back to survivor worlds apart yes um when wakine voted for also a not an easy name to spell, Joaquin. But you'd think he'd have more empathy. You think he'd try harder with Carolyn spelled C-H. Well, he's a white collar person.

You'd think that he would put the time into that. So Carolyn is spelled here. C-H-E-R-I-L-Y. Sherilyn. Sherilyn. A different name. Now, this is three days in, so there's a chance that he does think her name is Cheryl.

Yes. We don't know definitively that he got the name wrong. He could have gotten it so right. I could see Carolyn, Caroline. That's possible. But when we're making up completely new words that are not even sounding like what they are, that's so interesting. I feel when I can't spell a word, I am never putting an H in. I feel like a lot of the folks on this list, they're throwing in an H.

Adding in extra letters. Like, okay, oh, Carolyn, let me sound it out. Is it a K? but the Sherilyn Sherilyn Do you have any words that you have trouble spelling

in your time that you've been around on earth? Stuff that you can't nail. Probably many, but nothing really comes to mind. I do have to like that sometimes I get really thrown off of like T-H-E-I-R

is it I-E-R and I sort of like get myself like, wait, which is it? Can you spell like a, like a, this is one that I had yesterday, a bureau, like in your room, like a bureau where you put clothes? Is it the same as, like, the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Is it all, as it spelled the same? I think a B-U-R-E-A-U-A-U-R-E-A-U-B-R-A-U-R-R-A-U-R-R-R-A-U-R-R-R-A-R-R-R-E-R-R-E-R-R-E-R-R-E-R-U-S. Sure, the

Bureau of Land Management, a company. That's an interesting, hey, if you're watching this, you're learning something, too. And I think that's beautiful. Yeah, okay. How about it's not Fahrenheit, it's Celsius. Celsius. A vote for Cecilia in Survivor Cook Island. Whose vote is this?

That, I believe, you know what? And I knew that a couple hours ago, and I am unfamiliar now. It is the first mixed tribal council on Survivor Cook Islands. it could only be one of a few people. Is it Adam Gentry again? It may be Ed of Gentry again. Okay. Selsea.

No, Adam Gentry, not on this drive. Okay. I can kind of give a pass to this one, C-E-L-C-I-A. It's a lot of the same letters. Like, we sort of like have wordled up her name a little bit. It's not completely different letters and sounds. It is a missing syllable is the only, like it is almost right. Mm-hmm.

But it just, the new word is a different sounding thing. It is a different sounding word. Celsius. Do you know anybody named Celsius? I don't, but I think it would be like a really good energy drink. Like I just had a, well, I guess Celsius. Celsius is the energy. But it's their cousin.

It's their ranch off. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be like a really good like, like it would be for if I was going to, instead of like North Face, like, I got a new Celsius jacket. I got a new Celsius. We can, listen, if this goes bad, we can go into jackets.

People make a joke online. Brandon, Brandon, can I have your Celsius jacket? They'll sponsor us. People online make the joke of like, there are words that would be really pretty names for if they weren't, if they didn't mean the thing, like rabies. Like rabies. Like rabies.

What? It's rabies. Right? Taryn's like, I don't think so. Oh, wow. He was afflicted. I think Selsia, a pretty name. It's yours if you were to say like gonorrhea.

Like that sounds like if you didn't know what it was, it sounds beautiful. It sounds like a girl's name. Sure. Diarya maybe. Is that too much? No, I think that I mean it's the same idea. But it's nice sounding things. Yeah.

Dia and Gonne the Twins. How about instead of Lauren on the Edge of Extinction, Lorraine, L-O-R-I-N-E. Lorine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine. All right, Pete. Which Lauren was this? This is Lauren O'Connell. Lauren O'Connell.

So who did this? Not Rick Devings. This, I believe, is Big Wendy. And a fun fact about Big Wendy is that she voted for Lauren three times and spelled it wrong all three times. Yeah, and Lauren's a pretty common name. Was she doing it on purpose?

Was it a troll job? It wouldn't sound like a troll job if she didn't do it three times But three times I think implies a troll job Yeah I think if you're cooking on L-O-R-I-N-E That's not great Yeah Okay, almost looks like Lorne

Yeah Listen, a lot of people on the SNL subreddit Which they could vote off Lorne Yeah If it wasn't for the I you could say like Oh I thought her name was Lorne Lorne O'Connell Yeah, maybe that's a nickname

I guess that's probably a nickname for Lauren in some places. It's like chlorine. But Lorine, I think, is a name. Lorraine is like what your fifth grade teacher's name. Maureen. Lorraine is a teacher's name? Lorraine is a teacher's name.

I guess Maureen is spelled differently. Yes. Lorraine, if you Google it, it is a small business that makes bread. They make sourdough bread. It's a brand? It's a brand. Actually, and I'm incorrect,

they make bags to put your bread. Okay. They make bread bags. Bread bags. So I guess you have a loaf. Do you need a bread bag? I actually do. Yeah, Christmas.

I'm Christmas shopping already. So maybe I'll make something from Lorraine. Yeah. How about we go to our number two? Okay. Which is, it's Ralph again, spelling Stephanie as Stephanie. Stephanie. St.I-F-I-N-E.

Okay. S-T-I-F-I-N-I-E. E. Stephanie. Like Ralph knows about the letter E, because he uses it for the last letter. Yes. So it's weird that he didn't use it the other two times.

Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah, any staff is S-T-E-P-H or E-F. Stiff, Stephanie. Steph. You don't want your nickname to be Stiff. No, I'm glad for her that didn't stick.

Yeah. I guess in some careers, maybe you do want that, but not this one. Not this one. Not like this. Yeah. So this, this Stephanie, this is, did, was she back on the Survivor Second Chance ballot? She was. Yeah.

Stephanie. And they spelled it right then. They spelled it right then, but she didn't make it. I guess because people were voting in the way they spell this name and that it didn't count. Russell might have called her Stephanie. Russell Well, sure. Maybe she called Russell, Stephanie.

We don't know. Okay. We don't know. But here's our number one. The number one. What's the worst, most egregious misspelling in Survivor history as compiled by Brandon Donlin? Well, I'm going to tell you the reasoning why this particular vote made it to number one,

is this is mathematically the furthest away somebody has gotten from a name. while it's still being the correct name. Yeah. It is five letters off. Five letters off. And it is Roxroy's vote for Lindsay in Survivor 42, and we're going with L-Y-N-Z-E lines. L-Y-N-Z-E lines.

Is it possible that this could be like some kind of like Eric Rikenback, like, fill up, like, is this Lin-Z, L-I-N-Z, Is it possible that Roxroy was going for some sort of like fun phonetic spelling? I, and here's why I doubt that. He did only use, if you look at the parchment, he's only using half of the real estate on the parchment, which I think is interesting. You don't see a lot of people do that. But also, they hadn't ever met each other until this day. So they haven't had enough time to build rapport.

I think he thinks it's spelled like this, Roxor. Yeah, because I think maybe you might spell it like L, Y, N, N, D, L-Z, Lindsay. L-Y-N-Z-E That's like a wordle That's what my mom's guessing in word It's pretty quick It's like That's not a word

It doesn't even count it L-Y-N-Z-E There's a few different ways to spell Lindsay None of them are with a Z None of them are this Yeah, that's correct None of them are

I think you get your E-Y's Your A-Y's Your I-E's You're never getting Lin-Z I guess it is. In a way, it's Lindsay, but I read it as lines. Yeah. Kudos to Roxroy for the number one most egregious misspelling in Survivor history.

Yeah, I think, listen, everybody's looking for a record. And if anybody knew who that Rocksroy account was on Twitter, they should tell them. Yeah. But we did it. Yeah. So we learned some stuff here today that if you're going to have one of the top misspellings in Survivor history, you need to be off by a lot. It's just not just like one letter you misspelled a commonly used name. You got to really be creative.

Yeah. And it doesn't count if you spell it wrong to be funny. Yeah. And it's funny for a second, but it'll never get you on a list like this. Yes. We need you to spell wrong and be. It's like the traitors. You have to be loud and wrong.

Loud and loud and wrong. I bet on the traders, I bet there are some good ones also. Maybe like when we get to U.S. like celebrity traders season, maybe we could do this and go through the worst traitors name misspelling. in the show's history. Was it Rachel Riley who spelled Geraldine like super, super wrong? Is that familiar to you?

That sounds right to me. Yeah. Butcher Geraldine. Yeah. See, I'm Big Brother, you don't have to spell the names. Is that something you'd want to have? I think the Big Brother people sometimes are not as bright, so maybe we should put that in.

That helps. It helps. Okay. All right. Brandon, what's coming up for you? More of this. We'll be here doing podcasts every day. Do you want to say who the guest is?

this week? Love to. Yeah, very excited. Joe Hunter is going to be on the podcast this week. So I had the best time talking to Joe at the Survivor 50 finale. So let's hear what he has to say

about the open era. Joe Hunter, also a couple misspelled words. Yes. Mispelled names, but never wrong enough to make the list. Never, well, yeah, misspelled puzzles,

but I'm not so sure about the actual votes, but we'll see what it's to say about the open era. And easy to spell Joe. Well, How would you, I guess, J-O-E, J-O-E, is that's probably it, right?

There's no more. J-O-H? Yeah, I don't want to get it. Yeah, I guess so, yeah, you just have the silent H in there that could get you, so J-H-L. J-H-O. That's going to be a new open-era try. Yeah, we'll get J-H-L.

All right, so thank you for joining us for this one. Take care of everybody, enjoy episode three of Survivor. Take care of a good one. Bye.