| > A short time ago, i decided to try and build an API that would try to guess the gender of a first name. Obviously you need to run a test that uses a list of real people's names and genders to measure the method's accuracy. But remember the following points: * People might resent any effort to pin down their gender in a commercial or advertising context. * The negative outcome for a gender misidentification may be much greater than the positive outcome for a correct one. * Gender-neutral names are becoming increasingly fashionable among well-educated parents, i.e. people who have money. On that basis and in my opinion, unless you can get above 90% accuracy, it's not worth doing. Some popular gender-neutral names: http://www.babynames1000.com/gender-neutral/ http://thestir.cafemom.com/pregnancy/157282/25_best_genderne... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisex_name#English A quote: "Unisex names have been enjoying a decent amount of popularity in English speaking countries in the past several decades." |