Author: Damian W Betebenner

# Getting started with randomNames

#### Damian W Betebenner

# Introduction

The randomNames package contains a single function allowing users to generate proportionally correct, gender and ethnicity specific first and last names. The package contains an embedded data set of names that is based upon a large scale data set of names from the United States where the ethnicity and gender of the person was identified. The embedded data set includes information about ethnicity, gender (first name), and the probability of the name occurring in the data set. Random names are often useful in situations where one needs to share personal information but needs to obscure the identity of the person to whom the data belongs.

# Use

After installing the package from either CRAN or GitHub, it’s simple to generate random names using the following simple instructions.

By default, the `randomNames` function supplies a single random last and first name separated by a comma:

    > randomNames()
    [1] "Bauer, Maile"

To generate more random names, just supply a positive integer to the `randomNames` function:

    > randomNames(5)
    [1] "Twiss, Nicholas"     "Gonzales, Aimee"     "Martinez, Rashawnya" "Cross, Hunter"       "Spellman, Victoria"

## Additional output control

The randomNames function accepts several arguments including `n`, `gender`, `ethnicity`, `which.names`, `name.order`, and `name.sep`.

    randomNames(n,
                gender,
                ethnicity,
                which.names="both",
                name.order="last.first",
                name.sep=", ",
                sample.with.replacement=TRUE,
                return.complete.data=FALSE)

For complete documentation on values accepted for arguments, see the function documentation

## Examples

The first argument, `n`, controls the number of names returned by the randomNames function:

    > randomNames(5) ## 5 last, first names
    [1] "Bayona, Christopher" "Valentine, Allison"  "Sandoval, Joseph"    "Avants, Kali"        "Elliott, Kharim"

The second argument, `gender`, controls the gender (0=male, 1=female) of the first names returned. This argument can be a vector up to the same length as the number of names requested.

    > randomNames(5, gender=1) ## 5 female last, first names
    [1] "Siu, Abigail"      "Lizardo, Elsa"     "Wilcox, Taylor"    "Sinath, Christine" "Zamora, Waylene"
    >
    > randomNames(5, gender=c(0,0,1,1,1)) ## 2 male  and 3 female last, first names
    [1] "Alcocer, John"            "al-Hannan, Abdul Fattaah" "el-Zaki, Khaira"          "Brown, Kelsie"            "Stoor, Mickela"

The third argument, `ethnicity`, controls the ethnicity of the names returned. The following integer codes/ethnicities are accepted:

1. American Indian or Native Alaskan
2. Asian or Pacific Islander
3. Black (not Hispanic)
4. Hispanic
5. White (not Hispanic)
6. Middle-Eastern, Arabic

    > randomNames(5, gender=0, ethnicity=3) ## 5 African American, male last, first names
    [1] "Magraff, Robert"     "Fortenberry, Elijah" "Adams, Eli"          "Henderson, Seiko"    "Teshome, Patrick"

The fourth argument, `which.names` controls which names are returned. The argument accepts the values: `both` (the default), `last`, `first`, or `complete.data`

    > randomNames(5, gender=1, ethnicity=6, which.names="first") ## 5 Middle Eastern/Arabic, female first names
    [1] "Shafee'a" "Fareeda"  "Nusaiba"  "Fidda"    "Mu'hsina"

The fifth argument, `name.order`, controls the order in which the names are returned. The argument is only relevant if `which.names=both`. The argument accepts the values: `last.first` (the default) and `first.last`.

    > randomNames(5, gender=1, ethnicity=6, name.order="first.last") ## 5 first last names
    [1] "Awaatif, al-Rafiq"    "Aadila, al-Koroma"    "Husniyya, al-Shahan"  "Khairiya, el-Barakat" "Mutee'a, el-Atallah"

The sixth argument, `name.sep`, is a character string that controls the separator used when both names are returned. The default separator is `,`.

    > randomNames(5, gender=1, ethnicity=6, name.order="first.last", name.sep=" ") ## 5 first last names separated by a space
    [1] "Mu'mina al-Qasim"    "Shadhaa el-Siddiqui" "Shameema al-Hakim"   "Sireen el-Hameed"    "Sulama el-Ebrahim"

# Contributions & Requests

If you have contribution or a feature request for the randomNames package, don’t hesitate to write or set up an issue on GitHub.