Patent ID: 8433762

Claim:
A method comprising: accessing, by one or more computing devices, a data store of messages of a select message type to generate data relevant to associations between names associated with target users associated with a social network system and words in the messages, each message being directed to a target user and comprising one or more words, each target user being associated with one or more names; performing, by one or more computing devices, statistical analysis of the data to identify associations between at least one name associated with at least one of the target users and one or more words identified in the messages, the statistical analysis being based, at least in part, on: a number of occurrences of a candidate word under consideration in messages directed to target users sharing a same name; and a number of occurrences of words other than the candidate word in messages directed to target users sharing the same name; and constructing, by one or more computing devices, a data structure indicating confidence-of-nickname associations between the at least one name and the one or more words-based at least in part on the statistical analysis.