The misspellings of George and Charles were caused by haste, an embarrassed organizer told the Chicago Sun-Times.

"We were working day and night to get it ready by the 22nd," Bill Cosgrove, a retired firefighter who helped organize the memorial. "The mayor was coming."

Cosgrove blamed the errors in orthography, where typographical errors are entered into the automated etching device.

About 530 names of fallen firefighters are on more than a dozen panels, and Cosgrove said as soon as the weather warms up, the flawed panels will be re-engraved.

John Rice, who also worked on the memorial effort, said errant orthography seems to be "an epidemic."

Watching himself being interviewed in a TV report on the new memorial, Rice noticed something wasn't quite right.

"They called me John Price," he said.