Extent of discrepancy | Source of name discrepancy | Retrieval technique | Place of application* |
Slight or moderate | Misspelling, entry errors, and so on | Jaro-Winkler distance | Throughout all steps |
Phonetically similar but different spelling | Encoded all names using the Soundex function in R to allow matching of phonetically similar names36 | Throughout all steps | |
Shortened or expanded/hyphenated versions of same names | Allowed for substring matches between name fields | Step A: name bins 3, 4, 5 Step B: name bins 2a, 4 Step D: name bin 5 | |
Extreme | Use of nicknames and contractions (eg, Elizabeth—Betty, Tommy Joe—TJ) | Allowed for matches to common nicknames (see section VII of online supplementary appendix) | Step A: name bins 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 Step B: blocking key; substep 1 bin 2a, 2b, 3a, 4; substeps 3(2)(a) and (b) Step C: blocking key; substep 2 Step D: blocking key; name bin 1 |
Change or concatenation of last names among females | Relaxed last name matching criteria | Step C | |
Allowed for matches between current last names (in purchaser and mortality records) and former last names (in voter records) | Throughout all steps | ||
Switches in name order | Allowed for reverse matching of first-middle and first-last | Step A: name bins 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9 Step D: name bins 1, 5 |
*Refers to locations in the charts of linkage algorithms provided in section V of the online supplementary appendix.