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      <h1 class="entry-title">Random Name Generator in Python</h1>
    
    
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<time datetime="2013-02-17T00:00:00-08:00" pubdate data-updated="true"></time>
        
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<div class="entry-content"><p>I&rsquo;ve used multiple websites to generate random names for my test data when
running manual or automated QA tests.</p>

<p>Since discovering DuckDuckGo&rsquo;s <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=random+word">random word</a> generation, I&rsquo;ve
<a href="https://duckduckhack.uservoice.com/forums/5168-ideas-for-duckduckgo-instant-answer-plugins/suggestions/2850418-random-name">hoped</a> that someone would make a DuckDuckGo plugin to generate
random names also.</p>

<p>I didn&rsquo;t want to write my own DuckDuckGo plugin yet so I made a Python-powered
command line tool instead using <a href="https://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/1990surnames/index.html">1990 Census data</a>.</p>

<p>The program is called <code>names</code> and can be found on <a href="https://github.com/treyhunner/names">Github</a> and <a href="http://pypi.python.org/pypi/names/0.1">PyPI</a>.</p>

<h3>It&rsquo;s really simple</h3>

<p>It&rsquo;s basically just one file currently that&rsquo;s <a href="https://github.com/treyhunner/names/blob/f99542dc21f48aa82da4406f8ce408e92639430d/names/__init__.py">about 40 lines long</a>.
There is only one feature available from the command line currently: generate a
single random full name.  There&rsquo;s a few more features if importing as a Python
package: generate random last name or generate random first name (with or
without specifying gender), generate random full name (also without or without
gender).</p>

<p>The random name picker relies on the cumulative frequencies listed in the
included Census data files.  Here&rsquo;s the steps that are taken:
1. A random floating point number is chosen between 0.0 and 90.0
2. Name file lines are iterated through until a cumulative frequency is found
that is less than the randomly generated number
3. The name on that line is chosen and returned (or printed out)</p>

<h3>Examples</h3>

<p>Here&rsquo;s how you use it from the command line:</p>

<pre><code>$ names
Kara Lopes
</code></pre>

<p>Here&rsquo;s how you use it as a Python package:</p>

<pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; import names
&gt;&gt;&gt; names.get_full_name()
u'Patricia Halford'
&gt;&gt;&gt; names.get_full_name(gender='male')
u'Patrick Keating'
&gt;&gt;&gt; names.get_first_name()
'Bernard'
&gt;&gt;&gt; names.get_first_name(gender='female')
'Christina'
&gt;&gt;&gt; names.get_last_name()
'Szczepanek'
</code></pre>
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