Tag Archive for ‘names’

Ask Me is linked with Any Body and relates with Walther Von Stolzing

Published by Winfried van Holland on 12-10-2011 in Data Quality and Names. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Weird subject, isn’t it? Quite obvious for everybody, the persons ‘Ask Me’ and ‘Any Body’ are artificial names. They will never belong to a real person. How they relate to ‘Walter von Stolzing’ will follow.

For over 25 years Human Inference has collected reference data, for instance on persons. Because of our reference set we immediately recognize that ‘Ask Me’ and ‘Any Body’ are fake names. People are using these either in test situations or to hide their actual names.

In the old days we only needed to test on ‘Test Test’, in more recent years we see great inventiveness on these fake names. A brief example can be seen in the following list.

Alpha Beta Any Body
Ask Me Best Friend
Blue Sky Cool Dude
Dress Code El Comandante
Guess Who In Cognito

In case you cannot rely on reference data and interpretation you need to provide a check list. Providing it is one thing, but since users tend to be really creative, maintaining it is essential. Continue reading ‘Ask Me is linked with Any Body and relates with Walther Von Stolzing’

Has your name ever hurt you? – when nomen becomes omen

Published by Esther Labrie on 08-08-2011 in Data Quality and Names. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Addressing clients with the right data often means the difference between making a profit and not making a profit. Working with data quality experts has made me ever more consious of the value personal data represents for people. In this respect names are especially intriguing to me, as owners appear to identify with their name a lot. So I decided to do a little research and determine if people really are what their name tells you. Can nomen indeed become omen?

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. Continue reading ‘Has your name ever hurt you? – when nomen becomes omen’

Changing trend U.S. immigrants: sticking to their name is custom

Published by Vincent van Hunnik on 08-09-2010 in Data Quality. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

steinway
“New Life in U.S. No Longer Means New Name”
That’s the title of an article published in The New York Times this week. In short it shows evidence of a declining need to fit in with Western standards.
“For the most part, nobody changes to American names any more at all,” said Cheryl R. David, former chairwoman of the New York chapter of the American Immigration.
(Source: The New York Times)
Mr. Steinway (the famous German-born pianomaker who abandoned the name Steinweg in pursuit of economic success) is a perfect example of the 19th and 20th century convention of immigrants adopting Anglicized names.
What used to be needed to blend in and speed assimilation is no longer required. Economic powers are changing, as shown in this article in The Financial Times: “Indian economy shows 8.8% growth.” The world’s population is moving around more than ever, settling temporarily or permanently in other regions and countries.
So what does this mean for people in the data quality playing field? Continue reading ‘Changing trend U.S. immigrants: sticking to their name is custom’

Matching persons with different official names

Published by Winfried van Holland on 06-01-2010 in Data Quality. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Dealing with matching of persons or contact data in general, we are all aware that individuals can make use of abbreviations or nicknames as kind of synonyms for their name. Classic examples are the usage of the name Bill for the actual name William, or like my own father is using the name Mans while officially his name is Hermanus. Most data matching engines make use of a kind of synonym table to take care of this. That can be done because within a culture or region the nicknames are quite often linked to the same names and people do not tend to use completely different official registered names.

It becomes more challenging if there is no longer a link between nickname and official name. That may happen, for example, if people move from one cultural region to another where also other writing sets are used. Take for example my chinese friend 高为民, whose Latin name would be Gao Weimin (family name first), but the moment he works in Europe or the US he is using the Latin variant William Gao. There is no common relation to the name William and Weimin both in Latin or Chinese and it they are no phonetic variants of each other. Continue reading ‘Matching persons with different official names’

Most popular first names in Holland for 2008

Published by Ramon de Noronha on 12-12-2008 in Data Quality. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Only a few weeks left in 2008 and Christmas around the corner. So it is time for the traditional Top 10 lists. The “Sociale Verzekeringsbank” who is responsible for the “Kinderbijslag” has created a list of the most popular first names which have been given to new-borns in 2008.

Nr. Boys Girls
1 Daan Sophie
2 Tim Lieke
3 Jayden Julia
4 Sem Sanne
5 Thomas Emma
6 Jesse Lotte
7 Thijs Anna
8 Ruben Eva
9 Lars Anne
10 Milan Lisa