by Geoff Peters, B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University
Now Offering Corporate Data Services
Determining Gender based on First Name for your Customer Records
Does your organization have large lists of customer names, but has
missing or incorrect gender information?
When contacting customers, it pays to know the right gender. And it
means much more than avoiding embarrassing situations. Using the right
gender in written correspondence or over the telephone can establish a
sense of familiarity and trust with the client, whereas using the wrong
gender can lead to missed opportunities.
Have you ever received a form letter that was addressed to the wrong
gender? Using the wrong gender dramatically reduces the chance that the
addressee will ever respond.
How can gender disambiguation be done?
- Access our growing database of over 200,000 first names, organized
by gender.
- Most names which are not in our database can be instantly
gender-determined through our proprietary algorithms which analyze
the popular usage of names on the Internet. Our algorithm can make
use of interfaces to search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
What about "Gender-Neutral" names like Pat or Leslie?
- Our algorithm will provide a "gender ratio" which is an
indication of how strongly a name is associated with the indicated
gender. Gender-Neutral names naturally have lower gender ratios.
How much does it cost?
- If you only have a few names to look-up per day, you are free to
use our online Baby Name
Guesser, which makes use of the same technology as our corporate
services.
- If your company has a large client or prospect list, you could
send us a data file including the first name and an optional ID
number, and we will send back a list with the gender and gender
ratio for each name. Contact us about pricing. - Sorry, this service is no longer available, due to Google discontinuing their SOAP Search API.
How accurate is it?
- To get an idea of how accurate the algorithms are, you are free to
try out the Baby Name
Guesser. Our algorithms were recently used by a Harvard Business
School professor as part of his research, and are regularly used by
large organizations around the world for staffing and recruitment,
sales initiation, and international business.
How to contact you?
Update: January 2011
Unfortunately, due to Google discontinuing their SOAP Search API, we are no longer able to provide large volume name gender services.
Copyright(c) 2011 Geoff Peters.
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