Database of common name aliases / nicknames of people

Question

I'm involved with a SQL / .NET project that will be searching through a list of names. I'm looking for a way to return some results on similar first names of people. If searching for "Tom" the results would include Thom, Thomas, etc. It is not important whether this be a file or a web service. Example Design:

Table "Names" has Name and NameID
Table "Nicknames" has Nickname, NicknameID and NameID

Example output:

You searched for "John Smith"
You show results Jon Smith, Jonathan Smith, Johnny Smith, ...

Are there any databases out there (public or paid) suited to this type of task to populate a relationship between nicknames and names?

Answer 1

To select similar sounding name use: (see MSDN)

SELECT SOUNDEX ('Tom')

Answer 2

There is a database out there called pdNicknames (found at http://www.peacockdata2.com/products/pdnickname/). It contains everything you need, at a cost of $500.

Answer 3

A google search on "Database of Nicknames" turned up pdNickName (for pay).

In addition, I think you only need a single table for this job, not two, with NameID, Name, and MasterNameID. All the nicknames go into the Name column. One name is considered the "canonical" one. All the nickname records use the MasterNameID column to point back to that record, with the canonical name pointing to itself.

Your two table schema contains no additional information and, depending on how you fill in the nickname table, you might need extra code to handle the canonical cases.

Answer 4

I just found this site.

It looks like you could script it pretty easily.

http://www.behindthename.com/php/extra.php?terms=steve&extra=r&gender=m

I just wish I could auto narrow this to english..