Just wanted to say thanks for the database, been needing a lot of names with associated gender and this is perfect.
1) The distribution of gender for names not on Matt's list is almost definitely more female than male. The reason for this is that females are much more likely to have distinctive names than males. In fact, according to some queries I've run on well-defined sex codes, it appears that about 63% of all the first names in my table are female. This is important because when we assign gender to the most common names, as Matt has done, he's much more likely to have left females unassigned than males.
So by all means use Matt's genderizer, but be very careful about inferring gender on the data that has no code assigned. In other words, if you join a table of customers' first names to Matt's table and 85% of the records match and are 60% male, you can be confident that the 'unknown gender' 15% of the records are considerably more female than 40%.
2) I've found a few questionable codings that I'll list here. The name is followed by my estimation of gender. Matt's code is the opposite.
None of this should be construed as anything other than making Matt's excellent work better, and I very much appreciate his generosity in sharing.
These mis-spelt names are mostly gender-specific, but their mis-spellingness makes keeping a database much more difficult.
You are correct, of course. Many names are gender neutral and cannot be genderized to a specific gender. The current database consists of about 300 gender neutral names (gender = 'U'.) This issue makes it impossible to genderize names at 100% accuracy.
100% accuracy is often not needed, though. For many data marts and data validation routines 85%+ is better than nothing.
Also one of the improvements I would like to see to my database (if I can find the data) would be to include frequencies of usage of each name. IE. How many times has a name been used as Male and how many as female. This way I can do a propensity score and return an approximate weighted result.
Another issue which you rightly identify is nicknames. Nick names do tend to become more neutral than specific. Here again, though, at least for my uses 85% accurate is good enough.
The mis-spelling issue is also a concern. My current solution is not to worry about them since I attained my needed level of accuracy. However, in the future I intend to implement a Metaphone and EditDistance algorithm to help find incorrectly spelled names and based on the total frequency of male/female within the suggestion list genderize a name. (As I said in my article, though, I am not confident that this will yield good results.)
I appreciate your article (even if I have no use for it ) because it is honest (no 100% accuracy promised) and it explains well why it is needed (I wondered).
Note that now, French people can create any first name they want. It used to be much more restrictive in the past (only calendar and historic names).
A tasteful bulletin featuring breaking of bread and wine for the Lord’s Supper used for Communion occasions. Text: This Is My Body Scripture: “And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.” Mark 14:22-23 (KJV) The bulletin is shown folded (8.5" x 5.5"), exactly as church members and visitors will receive it. The back side is blank to include the information you choose. Bulletins arrive packaged flat 8.5" x 11" to fit into your printer or copier; shrink wrapped in packages of 100.
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