gender.hankstoever.com
Data
name gender classification api
SHOW HN2014
18points
45comments
#1,320of 2,272 in 2014
Top 59%of 2014 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
4 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 18 critical, out of 38 comments about the project. Thread score -0.33.
Performance: 0 for, 14 againstIdea: 2 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Fun to play with and test names
From 3 comments
I started searching for the most gender ambiguous names I could think of like "Jesse", "Alex", "Erin", etc. The best one I've found so far is "Angel" at 51.1% male.
joshfraser on HNThis is pretty fun lol. I searched for Santa and it said 99% female haha.
cclogg on HNThis is great fun, could you embed share options? I could trigger a share-war amongst my friends!
mastersk3 on HN
Useful for choosing gender-neutral names and deduplication
From 2 comments
One use I've come across for inferring genders was tackling record depupliction across multiple data sources. In one data set we might have the gender information of an…
joaomsa on HNI spend a lot of time choosing gender neutral names for story based scenarios in proposals (the joys of corporate work). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisex_name has been…
nl on HN
Objections
Results are inaccurate for many names
From 5 comments
"Permelia"[1] is definitely a girl's name[2]. [1]: http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/01/31/the-baby-name-wizard/ [2]: http://gender.hankstoever.com/classify/Permelia
sdegutis on HNMy name has a 50.444139% chance of being female. In the present case, the API is, unfortunately, incorrect.
robinjfisher on HNDefinitely some odd results: Michael = 52%, Thomas = 62% (although Tom = 98%)
ddeck on HNI get ~70% for a name I've never even heard of being used for a female.
blueskin_ on HNApparently Karan is female :(
karanbhangui on HN
Gender is not binary and should not be inferred from names
From 2 comments
The only reliable way to find out someone's gender is to ask them what gender they currently think they are. There are more than two genders and an individual's gender can change…
sambeau on HNWhile it's a quite interesting coding task to write a classifier, for the overwhelming majority of applications you simply don't need to know a user's gender. Making it a public…
onion2k on HN
Works only for English names and is not culturally neutral
From 4 comments
Without a location parameter this is pretty useless. Andrea for example is a male name in Spain and Italy as far as I know. Also this:…
splitbrain on HNI'm Italian, my name is Gabriele and it classifies it as female. That's wrong. In Italy, Gabriele is a male name. I agree that this is useless without location information.
terabytest on HNMy name has 99.99...% chance of being male. But when I change it to the English/Anglophone version, the chance is only 60.641%.
Dewie on HNNeat. Should probably call out that it's an API for "gender classification of english names". Did you build this mostly for learning/personal purposes?
levlandau on HN
Probabilities are not reliable without location data
From 2 comments
Without a location parameter this is pretty useless. Andrea for example is a male name in Spain and Italy as far as I know. Also this:…
splitbrain on HNFun, although you might want to state it applies to the US only
ozh on HN
Requests
Add location parameter or country scope
From 2 comments
Without a location parameter this is pretty useless. Andrea for example is a male name in Spain and Italy as far as I know. Also this:…
splitbrain on HNFun, although you might want to state it applies to the US only
ozh on HN
State that it applies to the US only or English names
From 2 comments
Fun, although you might want to state it applies to the US only
ozh on HNNeat. Should probably call out that it's an API for "gender classification of english names". Did you build this mostly for learning/personal purposes?
levlandau on HN
Add share options
From 1 comment
This is great fun, could you embed share options? I could trigger a share-war amongst my friends!
mastersk3 on HN
Questions
What is the training set?
From 1 comment
What's the training set?
bnegreve on HN
Was it built for learning or personal purposes?
From 1 comment
Neat. Should probably call out that it's an API for "gender classification of english names". Did you build this mostly for learning/personal purposes?
levlandau on HN
Alternatives named
Microsoft Windows gndr app using US Census data
From 2 comments
Bah I much rather use this app as it's much faster: http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/gndr/a062944e-744e-4955-b685-f3197faa2560
abe238 on HNI'm not even sure of that. I have seen much better results from US Census data with very different %'s of prob e.g.…
abe238 on HN
Unisex names list on Wikipedia
From 2 comments
There is an entire Wikipedia page on Unisex names [1]. Most Punjabi Sikh first names are applicable to both genders. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisex_name
arocks on HNI spend a lot of time choosing gender neutral names for story based scenarios in proposals (the joys of corporate work). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisex_name has been…
nl on HN