NameX
NameX is a proprietary name matching solution from Image Partners that bears a close resemblance to Nominex. It produces a ranked list of variants, derived from name pairs to which scores are assigned. The list of variants can be generated at runtime, though to speed up searches the list is usually pre-generated. The algorithms behind it are not published, except in very general terms.
For most tests the names returned look plausible, i.e. Precision is fairly good. But the 75% cut-off means that it’s more difficult to assess Recall. This is because the test site at www.imagepartners.co.uk only displays results down to a threshold value of 75% similarity. In other words, there may be plausible variants that are not shown because they either don’t meet the 75% threshold, or perhaps were not considered at all by the application that created the lists. Click here to read more about Precision and Recall.
According to the NameX website the scores are weighted averages of some six different comparison metrics. In this respect it’s similar to Nominex, but comparing the output from the two suggests that NameX probably relies more heavily on orthographical (spelling) differences and less on phonetic comparison than does Nominex. Thus NameX is probably good as a generic solution for surnames deriving from all cultures, but is less well-adjusted to British surnames. Nominex on the other hand has been designed using datasets specifically drawn from British sources.
NameX is based on a huge number of surname spellings. However many of these are extremely low frequency occurrences, and some look like typing errors.
NameX issues
There are a number of problems with the current implementation of NameX, of which the following are examples.
| Problem | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Phonetic pairs | Some phonetic pairs don't appear at all in the same NameX search, among these are Rough & Ruff, Nye & Nigh, England & Ingland, English & Inglish, Francombe & Frankham, Hugh[e]s & Hewes, Moore/Moor/More & Maw[er], Knowle & Noel, Pugh & Pew, Austerbury & Osterbury, Farrow & Pharaoh, Cru[i]se & Crews, Lyell & L'isle, Kircombe & Kirkham, Knox & Nocks, Bough & Boff, Pincombe & Pinkham, Euridge & Uridge, Sawer/Soar(e)/Sore/Saw(e).
Other pairs are not closely linked in NameX despite their similar pronunciation. Examples of these are Shaw/Shore, Lee/Leigh, Graham/Graeme, Hague/Haigh, Salmon/Sammon, Wallace/Wollis, Wiltshire/Willsher, Vaughan/Vawn, Morris/Maurice, Heywood/Heyward, Mayor/Ma[i]re, Yeo/Yoe, Laughran/Lochran, Rees/Rhys, Hurd/Heard, Waugh/Warr[e]. Each of these pairs have many plausible subvariants, so simply providing a look-up from one member of a 'pair' to another wouldn't not be sufficient, the solution needs to be more sophisticated. Ewell, Hewell, Whewell, Youell, Yewell, Yewell, Yewle, Youll and Yule are a particularly difficult group whose members are phonetically close but are not returned by the same NameX search. Again, each has numerous subvariants. The same is true of Ewen/Yuan etc. Another difficult group is McHugh, McCue, McKew, McQue, also with subvariants. |
| 2. | Initial letters | NameX doesn't appear, in general, to pair up plausible variants where just the initial letter is different. This particularly affects names where an initial H can be dropped, so that a search on Hancock will fail to return Ancock or several other plausible sub-variants. Other examples are Humphrey/Umphrey. The problem can also affect other letter pairs such as A/E, as in Alexander/Elexander. |
| 3. | Prefixes | Names with prefixes such as St., De, La, Le, Van etc. don’t appear to be catered for in NameX. This may be because they are regarded as double-barrelled. So a search on St. Clair only performs the look-up on the first element, while searching on Clair doesn’t include the St Clair variants. Additionally, searching on Saint Claire, Saintclaire or Sinclair won't produce St Clair. |
| 4. | Double-barrelled names | These occur in most surname datasets, with either a linking '-' character or a space character. The NameX website explains that only one element is used, whereas there are a number of surname instances where a hyphenated name probably should be treated as a single entity, e.g. Green-Field, Fitz Herbert. |
| 5. | Patronymics | In historical databases there are generally spellings such as Edwds or Edds (Edwards), Rbts (Roberts), Wms (Williams), Jno (John), i.e. surnames that have undergone the same shortening as the equivalent forename. Welsh patronymics represent the extreme version of these problems, where not only is the distinction between surname and forename blurred, but name elements have also been abbreviated eg Dd (David), Lld (Lloyd), Hl (Howel?). |
| 6. | Greek letters | Historically Greek chi has sometimes been used to represent Ch-, sometimes combined with rho for Chr-, especially in earlier sources. In typed and computerised databases these generally get replaced by the letters they most closely resemble, hence Xtmas or Xpmas (= Christmas), Xtopher (= Christopher). |
| 7. | ‘Conventional’ spellings | e.g. Beauchamp, Cholmondeley, Cockburn, Dalziel, Mainwaring, Marjoribanks. These usually have non-intuitive pronunciations that have generated additional versions that are closer phonetically to the actual pronunciations. These arguably ought to be linked, e.g. Beauchamp to Beecham. |
| 8. | Placename derivations | Rather like the previous category, surnames derived from certain placenames have conventional pronunciations that differ from their spellings, e.g. Leicester, Gloucester, Bicester, Worcester. These again have produced phonetically similar spellings i.e. Lester, Gloster, Bister and Wooster respectively. Each of these have numerous further sub-variants. NameX doesn't deal with these correspondences. |
| 9. | Misinterpreted letters in documents | Letters u/v and i/j are often interchangeable in early sources. For example Euans (Evans or possibly Ewans?), Steuenson (Stevenson), Oliuer (Oliver), Dauidson (Davidson), Vnderwood (Underwood), Beniamin (Benjamin), FitzIames (FitzJames). Arguably such spellings should be processed such that they achieve the ranking they deserve. |
The above examples lend weight to the suggestion that phonetic differences don’t feature as strongly in NameX as in Nominex.