Algorithm can guess your name based on your gender, decade of birth and one letter

There is a new name guessing algorithm that appears to be quite accurate.

If anything, it’s fun to try.

You simply tell it your gender, the decade in which you were born and the first letter of your name. Chances are it will guess your first name correctly.

It guessed mine correctly, and then it guessed my father’s correctly and several of my other family members'. I kept trying people I know and the algorithm was correct about 70 percent of the time. If it’s not right, chances are it’s very close.

Give it a try yourself.

The good folks at FlowingData.com explain:

“This is based on data from the Social Security Administration, up to 2018. It’s relatively comprehensive, but there are a few limitations. First, it’s data for the United States, so the numbers don’t really apply elsewhere. Second, the SSA doesn’t include names with fewer than five people in a year, so the chart doesn’t cover more unique names. Third, there were no Social Security Numbers before 1935, so the name counts are fuzzier for years before that.”

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