iHarder.net

Your Soundex Double

An article on SlashDot.org alerted me to the Soundex system created for the 1880 US Census that reduces people's last names (surnames) into a four-digit code. The article in return referred to another article on SFGate.com discussing the use of Soundex to match airline travelers' names to government watch lists.

If Soundex can be used for something as important as "no-fly" lists then certainly we should be able to get some entertainment value out of it!

Enter your last name (or your buddy's name) to see if any of your Soundex counterparts appear in a Google News search. If you're Soundex-equivalent list is exceptionally long, Google may not allow the search (try "Bush").

Last Name:

Alternatives

If you call this url and set the api parameter, you'll get a more RESTful response like so:

http://iharder.sourceforge.net/current/misc/soundex.php?surname=mitnick&api=1

Or to return the name equivalents only, add both api and namesonly like so:

http://iharder.sourceforge.net/current/misc/soundex.php?surname=mitnick&api=1&namesonly=1