Soundex Search Algorithm

Terms that are often misspelled can be a problem for data entry and data reporting.  Names, for example, are variable length, can have strange spellings, and they are not unique. American names have a diversity of ethnic origins, which give us names pronounced the same way but spelled differently and vice versa.
Words can be misspelled or have multiple spellings, especially across different cultures or national sources. To solve this problem, we need phonetic algorithms which can find similar sounding terms and names. Just such a family of algorithms exist and are called SoundExes, after the first patented version.

A Soundex search algorithm takes a word, such as a person's name, as input and produces a character string which identifies a set of words that are (roughly) phonetically alike. It is very handy for searching large databases when the user has incomplete data.  The original Soundex algorithm was patented by Margaret O'Dell and Robert C. Russell in 1918. The 
method is based on the six phonetic classifications of human speech sounds (bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, velar, and glottal), which in turn are based on where you put your lips and tongue to make the sounds.

Perl, PHP and MySQL have a built-in support for Soundex algorithm.