The legal term for you question is "idem sonans"; it is Latin for "two names having the same or similar pronunciation".  Though there is some debate, it has always been my understanding that the abstractor is responsible for "alike sounding names".  There is case law that supports both sides of the argument. 

A 1988 case from the First Appellate District in Ohio held that the doctrine of idem sonans is inapplicable to names that are misspelled in judgment-lien name indexes because the additional time necessary to examine name indexes would make the examinations financially prohibitive.  

The courts seem to place an emphasis on whether or not the indexing serves as constructive notice to third parties.  So, if the name is so mangled that it would not be found by a reasonably prudent abstractor then the doctrine would not likely be applied.  In one case, a lien against "Earnest" was mis-indexed as "Ernest" and was upheld when two abstractors testified that they would have searched under both spellings. 

In my opinion, in your example Ronald, Ronnie, Ron, etc., all indicate the same person and a reasonable search of the public records should be made to check for common variations - it wasn't exactly a misspelling.  In a computer index, any variation of a name can cause problems, but it would seem unwise to search only for "Ronald" when entering "Ron" would have likely returned all of the results.  I think your searcher should have found any lien filed under one of these variations.  I would be furious if one of my abstractors made such a mistake; they all know better.  Yet, anyone can do it, if they are in a hurry. 

This is a very interesting topic and I may do some more research for an article on the subject. 

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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