A short guide to Name Cleansing

When name and address data is supplied it is important to establish that ‘name’ data is actual present and in the correct columns.

Name data can consist of up to five distinct elements.

Prefix - Sir, Lord, Lady etc
Abbreviation for titles - Mr, Mrs, Ms etc
Forename - John
Surname - Allen
Suffix – MBE, OBE, GC etc

Each element needs to be sorted into appropriate columns. Sometimes data8 receives data where the forename and surname are contained within the same field this requires them to carry out name parsing, identifying the name elements and separating them into their correct fields. Taking, say, John Allen, placing John in the forename field and Allen in the surname field. Extra care has to taken about double barrel surnames to ensure they all go into the one surname field.

Using well established algorithms data8 can separate and parse the names which will allow the production of a correct envelope address and salutation, an example would be -

Data – Sir John Allen
Printed on the envelope – Sir John Allen
Printed as the salutation – Dear Sir John

With the advent of the internet there has been an increase in the use of salacious names, data8 have a database of salacious names and all names presented can be checked against this to ensure no offending mail is sent out. Data8 also identify where the name or address is incomplete and would render the mailing undeliverable, they also detect where the details have been entered by pressing random keys on the keyboard. These records can be excluded from any mailing, saving the money and the reputation of our clients.

Where no name data is supplied this will be flagged as an error so a default salutation can be used, such as Dear Occupier.

This is all part of data8’s data cleansing services, which allows clients to trust their data.