Your parents probably gave a lot of thought to the name they once gave you, and as it turns out they were right to do so! Research tells us a name can do wonders for its owner, as well as a lot of damage for that matter. Let’s have a look at some remarkable results.

Peter for President!
Recent studies show that in the US a student called Fred is more likely to fail his exam than a student who just happened to be named Andrew: people tend to indentify with their name and, in general, have a positive feeling about letters that correspond with their initials. Consequently Fred is far more likely to settle for a meager F, while Andrew will have an extra motive to strive for an A. It also explains how in choosing a partner we show a slight preference for someone whose name resembles our own, or why Mary will prefer to live in Maryland, while Monica is more inclined to settle in Santa Monica. Most of these preferences only show themselves through our subliminal selves, so we are not actually aware of the motivation for some of our choises. Another US study endorses these findings: inspired by the results mentioned above, researchers decided they’d investigate on another letter. They came up with the letter K, which in baseball stands for strikeout. The study showed once again that there is a connection between a letter and its causer: batters whose names began with a K struck out more often than other batters.

Ominous names
A UK research tells us that as much as one in 5 parents regret how they named their child. The novelty might have worn off after a few years, but can there be any real objections to a certain name? Apparently, there are plenty! Ironically it’s not the parents who’ll have to carry this burden for the rest of their lives…

“Hi, I’m Antwan, but you can call me Antoine…”
It seems that even children’s language skills are influenced by their name. This has to do with the effect negative emotions can have on a child’s performance. If for example you decided to name your son ‘Gene’ but spell it ‘Jene’, he is very likely to get confronted with disbelief from his teachers. “Are you sure your name isn’t spelled with a ‘G’?” This can severely undermine Jene’s sense of confidence. That explains why children with an unusual name or a name that is unusually spelled generally are less adequate spellers and readers.

“But Sissi is a Royal name, dear!”
When a girl is called Frankie we think it’s a fun name, a cool and robust statement to fit a strong personality. Yet when a boy is called Mckenzie, (yes, some parents think it’s cute to give their boy a name that has a feminine touch to it ) we see a similar effect, but with a different outcome. This is something his parents obviously had not foreseen: their son will constantly be shaking off his girly image. The effect is striking: boys with a androgynous name misbehave more often than their unambiguously named peers, especially when they reach puberty. A boy called Mckenzie or Aubrey is even more likely to display bad behaviour when there is a girl with the same name among his peers. One more reason for parents to stick to conventions when choosing a name for their newborn.

Want to produce the new Einstein? Call her Kate!
A name can be a burden, but if you use this knowledge wisely, you might just turn it into an advantage. What happens to a girl when she has finished school and needs to choose what subject to study? Well, according to a US study, her choice depends on her name. As it turns out girls with a very feminine name like Julietta or Isabella are more likely to study humanities, while those whose name is less obviously feminine are more partial towards science. The question is: who’s aspiring to whom? Could it be that parents would treat Kate in a different way than Barbara? Or did the parents subconciously decide they wanted to raise a scientist when they decided to call their daughter Kate?

Would you rather hire Vanity or Grace?
Of course it’s not just letters or gender that determines how we feel about a name. In fact, how other people perceive us very much depends on the meaning of our name. For example: when looking for a new member on your marketing team, would you rather hire Vanity or Grace? In spite of what her name tells us, Grace might be a job jumper who doesn’t know how to work in unison with her colleagues. Vanity on the other hand could just be a daughter of a well-read mother who had just finished her latest Thackeray when she gave birth. Still, both women will either meet a lot of prejudice or feel the need to live up to a very high standard because of their name.

It all goes to show that a name defenitely posesses some self-fulfilling qualities. Given the fact that so many parents regret their choice of names afterwards makes me think that the owners of that name might share these sentiments. So what does that mean when looking at it from a data quality point of view? Unisex names for example are responsible for a lot of data quality issues. As the borders between male and female names are fading we’ll need to update our knowledge continually. The human in Human Inference will definitely take care of that. After all, we wouldn’t want to you to put off Mrs Clinton when sending her a petition to take pity on the Syrian citizens starting: “Dear Mr. Clinton…”.

Source: Livescience.com & Babynames.com

The term Golden Record is closely related to Customer Data Integration or MDM for Customer data. It refers to the “single truth” which has been created or calculated from all those duplicate customer records from different systems. This post is not about finding or tagging all those duplicate records. There all kinds of ways to find them using advanced statistical methods, fuzzy matching etc.

But what do you once you have found the duplicates. How do you create the best possible customer data out of all gathered elements?

First of all we have to define what is meant by the Golden Record. We at Human Inference use the acronym ACCU, short for Actual, Correct, Complete and Unique. Ofbviously, we want one unique record. That’s why we use matching or identity resolution software. But Actual, Correct and Complete are less absolute, they can be interpreted in a subjective manner. You can have never-ending discussions about it, build the most complex business-rules ever etc. But I prefer to start with simply determining the superlative of Actual, Correct and Complete. In other words the most actual, the most correct and the most complete data-element or attribute “wins” and makes it to the Golden Record. Let’s take the following example, two almost identical records are gathered from two different systems (A & B).

The basic rule is that only Correct data will make it into the Golden Record. So, if you can validate data please do so. For instance you can check social security, bank account and credit card numbers using algorithms. You can validate email addresses. Using postal reference data, it is also possible to verify the correctness of addresses. The most difficult is to validate names. Extensive knowledge is needed to check whether names of persons and organizations are valid.

In my own experience and opinion you should always discard incorrect data, or let it be corrected by a data steward. In the end nobody should be in doubt whether a Golden Record has been established using doubtful data.

The next step is to examine attribute (field) by attribute. So using the example from above.

So using validation techniques to distinguish the correct data from incorrect data and determining the length of each attribute in the provided records will result in the following Golden Record:

Mister J.F. (John) Miller

26 Spring Gardens

Manchester, Lancashire, M2 1BB

United Kingdom

Even if you have a lot more of attributes in your Golden Record, this method still works. Determine the correct data and use only correct data. And using the function Length (LEN) to determine the “most complete” data. Most complete simply refers to consisting of the most characters. If the source systems also provide dates for “date entered” and “date last changed” you can use this to determine what the most recent data is. The most recent data is determined by formulas like MIN (“CurrentDate” minus “”Last Changed Date”).

I believe this method will lead to a very usable Golden Record in 90 to 95% of all cases. Only when you have to deal with complicated data, for instance father and son living on the same address and having the same initials it becomes much more complex. I am curious which rules-of-thumb and methods you use when calculating the Golden Record. Please put your ideas in the comments.

In fact, WolframAlpha has done a wonderful job. Enter any question you like and it will present nice formatted answers, illustrated with diagrams and links to sources for further research. It is interesting to see how several sources are combined and presented very clearly.

For all of us who are in the business of Data Quality, Names and Addresses, it is surprising to see you can enter about any given (first) name and you will get realistic numbers about occurrences of the name. As far as I have seen it is now solely based on data from the US, but it is obvious to see where this is headed. If WolframAlpha really takes off, it is just a matter of time before they have all sources for names of the world put into their system.

At least I know now that about 800 boys are born each year in the US with the same name as me. And whenever I have to raise my hand when my name is called, about 60.000 other US citizens will raise their hand too. I am still figuring out what my life expectation will be, because the age distribution graph is a little hard for me to digest. And why did Microsoft discontinue Encarta several weeks ago and launched their fourth or fifth attempt of their search engine this week? Is it just a coincendence ? By the way, have you already “BINGed” somebody?

In a recent post in data quality PRO the validation of foreign given names was discussed. After reading the excellent comment of my colleague Michael Grigat, I stumbled across an article in the “Bay of Plenty Times”, a local New Zealand newspaper.

The article described the rather patriotic name choice of a couple with regard to the newest addition to their family. They named their daughter “Zealand-New”.

Zealand-New’s mother Tomicina Davoren, and father Mana Te Moni, said they preferred a name that was different to any that featured in the country’s top baby names for 2008. “I’ve never heard anybody being called that name. You hear New Zealand every day but not as someone’s name.” She said the top names for 2008 may be popular but were “not the greatest”. “They are too plain,” she said.
Zealand-New is Ms Davoren’s and Mr Te Moni’s fourth child. Their other children are named Rlexuz Toara Chantz Te Moni, Mikaere Morgan Te Moni, and Korizma-Lake Vonnita Manaaki Te Moni.

This is what you might call a very substantial illustration of what Michael Grigat said in his post: “We have more than 20 years of experience with international given names and we know that validation of given names is quite a tricky thing.” Indeed we do ……