What is the best 32bit hash function for short strings (tag names)?

Question

What is the best 32bit hash function for relatively short strings?

Strings are tag names that consist of English letters, numbers, spaces and some additional charact

Answer 1

If performance isn't important, simply take a secure hash such as MD5 or SHA1, and truncate its output to 32 bits. This will give you a distribution of hash codes that's indistinguishable from random.