Assuming the first letter of the last name is correct.
Have you heard of Soundex? Soundex is a coding index that uses the first letter of the last name and three digits. Soundex is based on the way a name sounds rather than the way it’s spelled, which is a good idea for finding variations of last names like Smith and Smyth, as long as you’re absolutely sure of the letter the last name begins with.
What if the correct first letter of the last name isn’t there? In the above example, Barak H. Obama is incorrectly spelled as Barak H. Bama in the Target File. Soundex would not find a match even though the correct match may exist in the database. The Soundex code for Obama is O150; the Soundex code for Bama = B500. Luckily, the ILS matching algorithm is much smarter than Soundex.
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