Re: Detecting if 2 names are probably the same

Fernando wrote:
> Is there any algorithm todetect if 2 names are probably the same? For
> example, 'Michael Brown' and 'Mike Brown'.
I read this after answering the first. Sorry.

You can use SoundEx (search for Knuth and Soundex on Google) to compare
differnet names. But I would use another alghorithm since SoundEx has
some limitations (especially for non-english names).

One good candidate is (Double-) Metaphone (http://aspell.net/metaphone/).

I attached a package I wrote which implements SoundEx and Levestein
Distance.

You can find implementations of various alghorithms in Bob Jarvis'
Goodies Collection for Dolphin in the SoundsLike package
(http://www.nls.net/mp/jarvis/Bob/DolphinGoodies.htm). SoundsLike implements
* Double Metaphone
* NYSIIS
* Soundex

CU,

Udo