Oracle: Fuzzy lookup - sql

Question

I'm loading a table looking up an employee table. However sometimes the names from Source files and Employee table does not match correctly.
**Employee table:**
Employee Name
Paul Jaymes
**Source File**
Paul James
I want this to match. What could be the solution.

Answer 1

Use the UTL_MATCH package or the SOUNDEX function:
SQL Fiddle
Oracle 11g R2 Schema Setup:
CREATE TABLE Employees ( Name ) AS
SELECT 'Paul Jaymes' FROM DUAL;
Query 1:
UTL_MATCH.EDIT_DISTANCE:
Calculates the number of changes required to transform string-1 into string-2
SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE UTL_MATCH.EDIT_DISTANCE( Name, 'Paul James' ) < 2
Query 2:
UTL_MATCH.EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY:
Calculates the number of changes required to transform string-1 into string-2, returning a value between 0 (no match) and 100 (perfect match)
SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE UTL_MATCH.EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY( Name, 'Paul James' ) > 90
Query 3:
UTL_MATCH.JARO_WINKLER:
Calculates the measure of agreement between string-1 and string-2
SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE UTL_MATCH.JARO_WINKLER( Name, 'Paul James' ) > 0.9
Query 4:
UTL_MATCH.JARO_WINKLER_SIMILARITY:
Calculates the measure of agreement between string-1 and string-2, returning a value between 0 (no match) and 100 (perfect match)
SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE UTL_MATCH.JARO_WINKLER_SIMILARITY( Name, 'Paul James' ) > 95
Query 5:
SOUNDEX:
returns a character string containing the phonetic representation of char. This function lets you compare words that are spelled differently, but sound alike in English.
SELECT *
FROM Employees
WHERE SOUNDEX( Name ) = SOUNDEX( 'Paul James' )
Results:
All give the output:
| NAME |
|-------------|
| Paul Jaymes |

Answer 2

Use UTL_MATCH.EDIT_DISTANCE_SIMILARITY function in Oracle.
I would recommend creating a temporary table as below and check if the data is as expected. Usually score above 90-93 should be same with some typo in different systems. If there's only difference in 1 character you would get a score of 92 and above.
select s.employee_name,
utl_match.edit_distance_similarity(initcap(s.employee_name),e.employee_name) as score
from source_table s cross join employee_table e
where utl_match.edit_distance_similarity(initcap(s.employee_name),e.employee_name) >=90 ;