Formats and best practices for inquiry name submissions

To achieve optimal match results on your inquiry submission, the following formats and best practices are recommended for inquiry name submissions.

One name per inquiry submission

Submit the names for multiple persons in separate inquiries.
For example, submit "Mary Jones" and "John Jones" in two separate inquiries. Don't submit one inquiry with two names in the Name field.
If searching for multiple persons joined through a legal relationship, submit a single search inquiry as an organization rather than as separate single-name inquiries per individual.
For example, submit a single organization search type inquiry with "The Estate of Mary Jones and John Jones" in the Name field. This also applies to, for example, joint tenants in common, JTWROS, an FBO, or an IRA name.

Provide as complete a name as possible, preferably unparsed. If the person has a middle name, then include the full middle name if known. If only the initial is known, then include that.
A search for a name consisting solely of initials is unlikely to return meaningful results.
For example, “WC” is not treated as initials for “William Christopher" Handy. Instead, use “W.C.” or “W C” to match William Christopher.

If the search inquiry includes a surname, anything with that surname is matched.
If the search inquiry includes a given name, only records that are also a single name or that have the single name as an alias are matched.

Matches may vary based on the part of the name that is unknown and its importance for distinguishing an identity, relative to the name culture.
Multi-part name submissions missing unknown pieces may tend to result in mis-parsing and false positives if the missing element is weighted more heavily as a distinct identifier in the appropriate culture.
One exceptional linguistic culture is Arabic, as there is no universal naming convention, and therefore, very low corresponding penalties for missing parts in the name. It remains essential that inquiries are submitted in the order the data is received.

A name token often helps identify that a string of text represents a name. It may be included or omitted. Generally, these do not inform the comparison and are disregarded. Avoid entering job titles.
Titles or honorifics: “Mrs.” or “Dr.” titles that commonly appear as honorifics in names such as “President James Buchanon,” “Chairman Mao Tse-tung,” or “Captain James T. Kirk” are acceptable.
- It is also acceptable to use other common abbreviations such as “Fr. Francis Mulcahy,” “Sen. Ted Kennedy,” or “Lt. Dan Taylor.”
- For informal abbreviations such as “Cap” or “Cap’n” in place of “Captain,” or “Doc.” in place of “Doctor,” the qualifier will likely be misclassified as a name part and result in a no-match.
Qualifiers such as “Esq.”, "Jr.," or "III" that are part of the name should be included.
Degrees such as “M.D.” or “Ph.D.” can be included.

Grid screening does not automatically correct the spelling of personal names. General spelling errors may prevent accurate matches.
Some misspelled names may still end up matching depending on the exact name involved, how similar the names are, and the specific cultures involved.
The name-matching engine allows spelling variations for common cases, such as "Jeffrey" or "Geoffrey" and "Steven" or "Stephen."
If an inquiry name has multiple spellings and there is doubt about which is correct, a better practice is to submit both names as separate inquiries.

Names should always be submitted according to their appropriate cultural naming convention and in the local script when available. With this submission strategy, there is no data lost via transliteration, and the software has the best chance of parsing the name in the correct order.
Profiles built from non-Latin script sources always feature a Latin Script transliteration in the profile's Name, with the local script name captured in the Alias field.

Avoid extra information in the Name field:

Avoid including additional aliases, AKAs, nicknames, account numbers, job titles, or any other extra information in your search inquiries. Account numbers and other clarifying information can be put into specific inquiry fields like Tracking ID, Reporting ID, Address, or into the Inquiry Notes field.
Aliases: For aliases or AKAs, you must search the two names individually or as separate inquiries. For example, submit inquiries for "Dick Whitman" and "Don Draper" as two separate inquiries instead of submitting one search inquiry for "Dick Whitman A.K.A. Don Draper."
Nicknames: Do not include nicknames, hypocorisms, or diminutives unless commonly used in addition to or in place of the given name. For example, “George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth Jr.”
There is no need to provide nickname variants for commonly used cases. For example, if searching for “William Penn,” there is no need to also search for “Billy Penn” as "Billy" is a commonly used variant of "William."
Account numbers: Avoid account numbers in the Name field.
Job titles: Avoid job titles such as such as “CEO,” “manager,” or “CPA."
Excess information: Avoid any excess information as well as additional information in parentheses in the Name field. Only the name should be submitted in the Name field.

In this section: