Problem Statement

Develop an algorithm to find the similarity between two names.

• Initials: Jane Doe Hamilton == Jane D. Hamilton
• Missing Parts: Jane Doe Hamilton == Jane Hamilton
• Spelling errors: Jane Hamlton == Jane Hamilton
• Word Order: Hamilton, Jane == Jane Hamilton
• Titles: Dr. Jane Doe == Jane Doe

*While disambiguating between names, less frequent names will be prioritised

Solution

A rule-based system that returns a score between {0, 1} indicating the similarity between the names as well as a short description of how the score was calculated.

Score: 0.83

Reason: Common Initials 

Steps

1. Check for exactly same names

2. Check if names differ by only missing titles(Phd., Dr., Miss., etc.)

3. If one of the names has only first name then match for first names

4. Check if the first and last names are the same

5. Check if one of the names is in the reverse order

* If any of the conditions in 1-5 are true then return a score of 1.0; i.e. - same names

6. If the names have common initials then get a score based on matching initials

7. Get a score based on the number of different characters in both names

8. Get a score based on the popularity of the names

9. Return a combined score based on step 6, 7 and 8

Example Outputs

'*' Uses damping factor(theta) = 1

Customisable/Trainable Parameter: Theta

Combined Score

(Where there is no direct rule-based matching)

Average(Edit Distance, Rank Score, Initials Score)

Edit Distance Score = 2*(Number of edits required)/(combined length of both names)

Rank Score = 0.95*theta

Gist: https://gist.github.com/rishy/2dbf3ed8ded93d767ed4fb152acfae4f

External Library Used: https://github.com/philipperemy/name-dataset