The soundex system to encode names was developed in 1918 by Robert C. Russell.

It gives a short string to show roughly how the first part of a name (or other word)  sounds when spoken. To find the soundex of a name, first write the letters of the name. Then go through the following steps:

1. delete the first letter of the name (but keep a record of it);

2. delete any A, E, I, O, U, Y, H, or W;

3. replace letters by numbers, as follows:

use 1 for B, F, P or V;

use 2 for C, G, J, K, Q, S, X or Z;

use 3 for D or T;

use 4 for L;

use 5 for M or N;

use 6 for R;

4. if two or more adjacent numbers are the same, omit all but one;

5. if there are more than three numbers, keep only the first three; if fewer than three,  add 0s to the end to make the code up to three numbers;

6. put the first letter of the original name on the front of the code.

Sample Problem 1.1 Find the soundex representations of the names SPRINGER and HAMMAN.

Solution