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One name written two ways

name-varianton by default (info)Japanese / English

The same person, company or product name written slightly differently

Example

How to fix

Check the right form and use it throughout. If they really are different people or companies, leave them.

Why it matters

A person, company or product written as "GitHub" in one place and "Github" in another leaves the reader unsure whether they are the same. In a contract it blurs who the party is. The usual causes are a typo and a paragraph pasted from another document. chaff does not decide which form is right; it points at the one the document uses less.

What it does not flag

Only words the tagger reads as proper nouns are checked. Names in capitals only (ACME INC, NASA) are left out, and so is a name inside a passage written in capitals (eGAIN in "eGAIN AND ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO WARRANTY"). A link's brackets are not part of a name. Names one letter apart are reported only when six letters or longer, with the usual form used at least twice and the other once (Iran and Iraq are different names). Two surnames one letter apart under different given names (Jeffrey D. Walker and Christopher J. Waller) belong to two people, and a doubled last letter dropped (License and Licensee) makes another word when the document writes either in lower case. Two Japanese person names are compared only when written with another form of the same character (斎藤 and 斉藤), or read the same with one character different, the usual form used at least twice and the other once (松本 and 松元); 伊藤 and 伊東 can be two people. A name character the tagger has no reading for (汰 in 健汰) is read with its reading from the lexicon name-char-reading (健太 and 健汰), in table cells as well. A person's name is one the tagger reads as such, or one followed by 様, さん or 氏 (when a name holds a character form the tagger cannot read, the two to four kanji before the honorific are taken as the name). The honorific may follow the name after a space. A word the tagger does not read as a given name is taken as one when it follows a surname after a space and carries an honorific (森下 千尋 様). A given name written in kana after a surname and a space is joined with the surname when an honorific or a title follows it, or when it ends a line in a field that names a person (松本 あかり 様). A name without an honorific is compared too when it is two to four kanji standing alone, one form has a lead such as 担当の or 私、 or an honorific, and the other stands before a word such as です, が or までご連絡 (担当の斎藤です and 斉藤までご連絡ください). Places have such pairs as well (鹿島 and 鹿嶋), so two forms with neither a lead nor an honorific are not compared. A company name is one next to a company form from the lexicon (Inc., Ltd., Co., Ltd., LLC), whatever the tagger reads it as. The same name with forms of two kinds (Inc. and Ltd.), and the same name written with other punctuation or width, are reported. A name written with three forms or more (Aoba Inc, Aoba Ltd, Aoba GmbH) is a group of companies, and its forms are not compared. The short and long spelling of one form (Inc and Incorporated) and a name written without its form (Aoba Systems, the "Company") are not. Two names one letter apart are reported only when seven letters or longer, with the same form, and the letter is not a kanji. A name holding kanji is compared when shorter too, for one kana apart inside a kana word of four or more (コモレビ電機 and コモレピ電機), with the usual form used at least twice and the other once. One kanji of a name written in its kana reading (みどり野生命 and みどりの生命) is reported the same way; the reading is the tagger's, taken only from a word of kana and one kanji. A kanji that does not start the name is also matched with its reading voiced at the start (こむぎ畑 and こむぎばたけ). A place name is one ending in a place word from the lexicon (Street, St., Avenue, Station, Center), whatever the tagger reads it as. The same place written with other punctuation (King's Cross and Kings Cross) or with the place word short and long (11th Street and 11th St.) is reported; a place whose name is one letter away (Union Station and Unoin Station) only when the usual form is used at least twice and the other once. Other numbers and other names (1st Street and 2nd Street, North Hall and South Hall) are different places. Table cells are tagged cell by cell, and a cell holding only a name (two to four capitalised words, or two or three kanji or katakana words with a space) is compared with the names read in the prose. Reported are the same name with other punctuation or case, or one word different with the other words the same, either a letter away (Sofia Mendes in the text, Sofia Mendez in the table) or, for a Japanese name, read the same as the prose name (佐々木 美穂 and 佐々木 美保); these only when the prose form is used at least twice and the cell form once. Place names inside table cells are compared too. A word next to a name that the tagger did not read as a name (to Rachel Whitford, with Rachel read as a verb) is read with it when the two together are read as a name elsewhere. Two names with the same given name and a surname of seven letters or more, whose first four letters match and which differ in at most two letters between the shared start and end (three in the longer one), are reported when the usual form is used at least twice and the other once (Rachel Whitford and Rachel Whitfield). A different given name (Daniel Whitfield) or a surname alone is not compared this way. A name with its words in another order (Foundations of Statistics and Statistical Foundations) is reported only when both hold the same words (by stem) and neither contains the other, and one of them is written as a name, in quotation marks, after a label such as "Prerequisite" and a colon, or as a whole table cell. Two Title Case runs alone are not compared (Florida Supreme Court and Supreme Court of Florida), nor are two names joined by "and", two forms written in one sentence (two menu labels side by side, a term and its definition), or a term the document defines. An article alone does not join two words into a name ("this Agreement the Stockholders"). In Japanese, a product name is four or more katakana right before a product-form word from the lexicon (錠, カプセル, クリーム), whatever the tagger reads it as, counted in headings and table cells as well. Two such names with the same form word, differing by one replaced kana or one long-vowel mark (ミナモール錠 and ミナモル錠), are reported when the usual form is used at least twice and the other once. The same name with another form word (ミナモール錠 and ミナモール顆粒) is not, as a product line often has both. In a Japanese name, a character for the same sound (桜ヶ丘 and 桜ケ丘, 霞ヶ関 and 霞が関) is the same only between two kanji, in a name the tagger reads as one word (not 桜が丘, read as 桜, が, 丘). A name without it (桜丘) or with other kanji (桜ヶ岡) is another name. This difference alone is also looked for in the names inside table cells. A model number (four or more capitals and digits, as one word) is read as the document's model only when it is in the title or after a model label from the lexicon (Model, Model No., Part No.); when it appears twice or more, a form that changes only hyphens, spaces, case or width (KM-SP300 and KM-SP-300, KMSP300, km-sp300) is reported. Codes with other letters or digits (KM-SP300 and KM-SP310, a sibling model in a comparison table, the part numbers of a parts list) are different models and are not compared. A word with small letters (iOS17), a version (v1.2 and v1.20), and a code inside a longer code, a URL, a path or a file name (KM-SP300-B, km-sp300.pdf) are not read as model numbers. A standard number written with spaces (JIS C 8714) is not one word, so it is not read as a model even in the title or after a label. Two forms written once each are compared when exactly one of them is in a field that names a person (a label from the lexicon person-label and a colon, with the name ending the line, as in "Contractor:" followed by Priya Raman); the field's form is taken as the usual one and the other is held to the same rules (Priya Raman and Priya Rahman). Two forms both in such fields, or neither, are not compared. Read differently, two full names (surname and given name) are still reported when they differ by one character and the two characters are a lookalike pair from the lexicon name-lookalike-char (太 and 大, 未 and 末), with the usual form used at least twice and the other once (山本 健太 and 山本 健大); a given name alone is not compared this way, as siblings can have such names. In a Latin-script name of two or more words with the other words the same, one word with its last letter dropped or added (Rachel Whitmore and Rachel Whitmor) is reported when the usual form is used at least twice, or is in a field that names the person, and the other once. When that word is the last one (the surname), only if no word before it is written in lower case, or read as a common noun, anywhere in the document (Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Hannah are two storms); a surname of four letters is then also compared for one letter apart (Daniel Reyes and Daniel Reys; Reyes and Reyna are different surnames). Another word is compared only when eight letters or longer and the name ends in an ordinary word (Hollybrook Residences and Hollybrooke Residences; the given names Christian and Christiane belong to different people). An added s (a plural) or an n after a vowel (Korea and Korean), and a pair where either word is an ordinary word (Green and Greene), are not reported. Two company names with the same form on the same side, differing in one word only, by at most its last two letters in a word of eight or more (Brightmoor and Brightmore) or as the singular and plural of the last word (Water Utility and Water Utilities), are reported when the usual form is used at least twice and the other once. Two one-word names that are both dictionary words, where one with its ending taken off starts the other (a people and its country, Germans and Germany; a singular and its plural, Englishman and Englishmen), are two words and are not reported.

Turning it off or relaxing it

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/name-variant.yaml