How can I auto-generate unique fake names for users?

Question

We would like to give each of users an alias so that we can refer to them in discussions while protecting their identity. These aliases should be unique.

The easy way would be to simply use a SERIAL column, but ints aren't memorable. We would like to use real people names so that we can remember the aliases.

The other easy way would be to find a list of first names somewhere, number them, and use a SERIAL to fetch names from the list. When the list runs out, add more names.

But is there some clever way to map ints to names?

We currently have about 2,000 users and are growing, but I doubt we'll ever become Google.

Answer 1

Pick a random name from the Census Bureau's names file.

Answer 2

Back in "the day" Compuserve (or was it AOL?) used to give out temporary, initial passwords by having two lists of words and taking one word from each list and putting it together, so you would get something like EasyTomato or whatever. Perhaps something like that would work for your user base. If each word list has 256 characters, that's 65535 unique combinations (and notice how easily you can pick the combination by just incrementing a 16-bit integer).

EDIT: Well don't do a straight increment of the integer after all, or the first 256 people will all get the same first word, but the basic idea is still sound. Pick a random, not-yet-used 16-bit number. High 8 bits are your index into the first word list, low 8 bits are your index into the second word list.

Answer 3

Have you tried any Hash functions? I am not sure whether they are available in Postgres. But yeah, one way to do is let the internal hash function take care. They will output unique IDs.

Answer 4

It may sound crazy. But there is an algorithm used in game programming to create meaningless but phonetically unique names like Alveolar, Bilabial, Glottal, Palatal, Velar.