how to recognize similar words with difference in spelling

Question

I want to filter out duplicate customer names from a database. A single customer may have more than one entry to the system with the same name but with little difference in

Answer 1

I would consider writing something such as the "famous" python spell checker.

http://norvig.com/spell-correct.html

This will take a word and find all possible alternatives based on missing letters, adding letters, swapping letters, etc.