Guide · updated 2026-11-04
Cleaning names without damaging them
Normalization, case and transliteration: what is safe to change in people's names.
Normalize, don't transliterate
NFC makes a precomposed é and e plus a combining accent identical. Transliteration replaces letters (José becomes Jose) and changes the name. Use NFC for comparison; never remove accents from stored names.
Compare on a key, store the original
If you need case-insensitive matching, build a comparison key (NFC, trimmed, case-folded) and keep the original value for display.
Names are not identifiers
Two people can share a name and one person can write it differently. Use names as supporting evidence in matching, never as the only key.