Name Profiler Toolkit

IEEE Comput Graph Appl. 2017;37(5):61-71. doi: 10.1109/MCG.2017.3621224.

Abstract

The Name Profiler Toolkit is a visual analytics system designed to enable the interactive exploration and analysis of forename and surname geographical distributions across the United States. The toolkit utilizes 78 million records from US public telephone directories, links the location data to demographic data from the US Census Bureau and Zillow, and allows users to interactively compare distributions of names and name attributes. Using the forename and surname data as a case study, the authors developed a methodology for exploring joint probability distributions of categorical spatial data and demonstrate how such data can be linked to secondary sources of information (such as income and age) to derive further insights from the data.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.