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

There is a very nice R (just search for "R" in Google) package for Record Linkage. The standard examples target exactly your problem: R RecordLinkage

The C-Code for Soundex etc. is taken directly from PostgreSQL!