Cringely mentioned in a column a while back that Qaddafi didn't particularly care:
“Spell it any way you like, ” he said (in pretty fair English, by the way — something else that seems to have strategically disappeared over the years). “All that matters is spelling it correctly in Arabic.”
Yes well. Looking at that list there seems to be something of a consensus on the -afi. Also just because 112 different spellings have been used, doesn't mean all 112 spellings are correct.
Well, I'm not really up for a tedious discussion over semantics; my initial post was actually a genuine query because I have never seen it spelt otherwise than Gaddafi or Qaddafi. Evidently it's actually a linguistic can of worms.
If I had to say, I guess correct would be the closest phonetic spelling to the Arabic, and as I understand that would be Gaddafi (in Libya) or Qaddafi (more generally). Or you could use what he has used himself in the past, which I have just discovered is: Gadhafi [0].
So without even nailing your colours to the mast over the correct definition of 'correct' in this context perhaps you might agree that Gadaffi is probably incorrect for any sensible definition of 'correct' in this context.
Or perhaps we could all agree to just call him 'that evil motherfucker from Libya'.
Edit: So it is, although the correct spelling is already taken.