Some commenters asked why I use Hanukkah instead of Chanukah in my recent posts. When there are multiple transliterations, I prefer to use the more common one, and Google searches suggest Hanukkah is about five times more common than its nearest rivals.

I also tend to prefer spellings that are more unambiguously phonetic over those that are less phonetic or more ambiguous. I expect that most people know that the "Ch" in "Chanukah" is not the more common "ch"-as-in-"chair," but I imagine there are some who might not, so if all were equal I'd prefer a "H" in any event. (I know the "Ch" is supposed to represent a sound that differs from a normal English "H," but the difference isn't vast, and in my experience even my Jewish friends tend to use the more familiar English "H" sound when saying the word.) And here, the more common spelling is also the clearer one, so Hanukkah it is for me.