ruZulu.com is a name origin and ethnic background finder
Contents
About ruZulu.com
This web app tries to find the national origin or ethnic background of a person given their full name.
Instead of searching name databases, it uses statistical techniques to find a matching origin for your name. This means it can make mistakes, but it can also classify rare names or names it has never seen before. Are You Zulu is a free web application that guesses the national origin or ethnic background of a person given their full name.
Here's how it works
- You submit the full name of a person you want to analyze, say Anna Akhmatova.
- You get the best guesses for this name, grouped by geographic region and scored by probability
- You can easily bookmark this link or share it with the world (just click the Share button).
Some ideas on how to use it
- Impress IM buddies on the opposite end of the world with your knowledge of their local names and ethnicities
- Impress a friend from India by guessing the Indian state they came from
- Satisfy your curiosity by checking the origins of a bunch of foreign names you hear every day
- Find out what Are You Zulu thinks about your upcoming baby's name
- Discover something new about the world and feel good about it
Here's what really happens
Are You Zulu analyzes the linguistic properties of the name and tries to match them against 100+ possible origins. It uses a combination of techniques from machine learning and statistics, such as Language identification and Bayesian networks.
The application does not search any name databases or lists. By relying on statistical methods, it is capable of recognizing and classifying names it has never seen before, even names that were made up on the spot. While not always right, it can make pretty good guesses for a huge variety of names from around the world.
Are You Zulu is designed to work with full names. Omitting the surname will make its guesses less precise and more spread out. For a name like "Maria" it lists more than a dozen possible origins.
Finally, this application is new and is still a work in progress. Thank you for checking us out!
