Neural networks for name generators - anyone tried them?

[eepjr24]

I have not played with them, although I am familiar with the concepts. They are partially an ML implementation of techniques developed for matching names based on degrees of similarities used for decades in name and address match routines. The problem you have with real place name generation is hard to overcome without either very large sample sets, an exclusion list or significantly increasing the temperature as you noted.

If you like rabbit holes, check out some of the more advanced routines that attempt to generate hypocoristic alternates. I am not sure where to go to find a public implementation of that, but I know several of the larger IM players (SAP, Informatica, etc.) have attempted to develop something that has a reasonable success in that arena.

- E

[ChickPea]

The problem you have with real place name generation is hard to overcome without either very large sample sets, an exclusion list or significantly increasing the temperature as you noted.

Yeah, my dataset had nearly 6000 entries, which I thought would be plenty, but I suppose more is always better.

My main issue with including real place names is that I wanted everything to be fictitious. I can usually pick out the real names from my Scottish list, but if I wanted to use different datasets from around the world, I'd have no clue what was real and what wasn't. Your idea of an exclusion list would work though. I can get my python script to check if the name generated is in the original list, and if so, delete it. That won't be too hard, even for me!

If you like rabbit holes, check out some of the more advanced routines that attempt to generate hypocoristic alternates.

Hehe I think I will very quickly get out of my depth with this. Sounds very interesting, though.