human-name-py

Python bindings for the Rust crate human_name, a library for parsing and comparing human names.

See the human_name docs for details.

Examples

  from humanname import Name

  doe_jane = Name.parse("Doe, Jane")
  doe_jane.surname
  => u"Doe"
  doe_jane.given_name
  => u"Jane"
  doe_jane.initials
  => u"J"

  j_doe = Name.parse("J. Doe")
  j_doe.surname
  => u"Doe"
  j_doe.given_name
  => None
  j_doe.initials
  => u"J"

  j_doe == doe_jane
  => True
  j_doe == Name.parse("John Doe")
  => True
  doe_jane == Name.parse("John Doe")
  => False

Supported environments

Linux, MacOS, and Windows, as of the versions currently supported by GitHub Actions. x86-64 or Apple Silicon. Python 3.10 or later.

If you have access to another environment which is supported by the Rust compiler, it should be relatively straightforward to fork the library and add support. You'll need to build human_name, copy the resulting library from target/release/ in that repository to humanname/native/<arch>/ in this one, and modify _load_lib appropriately. If this environment is additionally supported by GitHub Actions, I'm also happy to accept a PR.

Alternatives

You might also consider using the pure-Python nameparser. Parsing performance is just about identical; the advantage we gain from the Rust implementation we surrender in the overhead of the ctypes interface.

humanname does offer significantly more sophisticated comparison logic, which understands how initials relate to names, can in many cases handle nicknames and transliteration intelligently, etc.