I’m thrilled to have had the privilege to share a talk at PyData Amsterdam 2024 on a topic close to my heart: names. I have co-published research in the past on name matching, but this lighthearted talk focused on something a bit more basic: what is a name? Inspired by a legendary blog post by Patrick McKenzie, this talk explores how any name validation is fraught, with a particular focus on the challenges with cross-lingual name matching. Finally, we discuss how addresses pose similar issues.
The takeaway? Store first, parse later.