What's in a name?

You wonder how they make those mistakes by getting your name on a terrorist list? "The technology used by immigration authorities, for example, may confuse Osama bin Laden with punk rocker John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten. Its key-based software, known as Soundex, assigns a number to groups of consonants, cutting out the vowels and delivering a code that could mistake Laden for Lydon. Most banks, airlines, government agencies, law enforcement departments and businesses would make the same mistake because they use the same software. First tested in 1918, Soundex is the de facto standard for name searches."

But help is at hand and now nothing can go wong. "The technology can tell you the culture the name is from, the gender or marriage status of the person, the probable variations of the name in order of frequency, its literal meaning and the countries in which it is most likely to be found."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/next/names-lead-investigators-to-hoards-of-personal-information/2005/10/03/1128191646784.html