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Best approch to finding/fixing miss-spelled names.

  • March 20, 2013 at 8:52 am

    #291204

    I have a column in a table that has user names, user can appear in this table multiple time, but as they are imported into the table from a csv there can be a number of different spellings of the same user i.e. 'Gavin Baxter', 'Gav Baxter', 'Gavin Baxter jr' , 'Gavin b Baxter'.

    I need to idetify these users so i can update all there occurances with the one version of the name. I looked at soundindex but didnt seem to do group them the way i want.

    any help out there?

  • March 20, 2013 at 8:59 am

    #1598957

    i cannot imagine any way to automate this;

    this really requires someone to go thru the data, and familiar with a lot more than just the names/users;

    you don't have any other criteria to group the names, other than the full name, with /without middle names and suffixes, to additionally filter the criteria? like email address, or phone number, or mail address?

    the other issue is potentially two people can actually have the same name. you don't want to merge tow records unless you are sure they are the same person.

    or it might be that Gavin registered twice, and really has two accounts, each with a different email? ie @gmail and also @yahoo?

    Lowell

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  • March 20, 2013 at 9:21 am

    #1598980

    Lowell (3/20/2013)

    i cannot imagine any way to automate this;

    this really requires someone to go thru the data, and familiar with a lot more than just the names/users;

    you don't have any other criteria to group the names, other than the full name, with /without middle names and suffixes, to additionally filter the criteria? like email address, or phone number, or mail address?

    the other issue is potentially two people can actually have the same name. you don't want to merge tow records unless you are sure they are the same person.

    or it might be that Gavin registered twice, and really has two accounts, each with a different email? ie @gmail and also @yahoo?

    yes i cant see it being automated, its really to help with identifying records i.e. OK these are all the 'Gavin Baxter' type variations so you choose. They also have Racing numbers and racing license numbers but these too can be incorrect and yes the rider could have registered twice in the one season but even so both those records need to be combined into the one for the season points summary.

  • March 20, 2013 at 10:23 pm

    #1599215

    Developing something like this yourself will takes years to perfect and will be low quality if you devote only a small number of resources towards it. Companies like MelissaData have name-recognition software that can help and although they cost money if this is a serious need for your business it will easily pay for itself.

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    --Plato

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