solr - Training solr to recognize nicknames or name variants

Question

I'm pretty sure that solr can be set up to recognize synonyms during searches. I'm wondering if it's possible to do the same with nicknames -- so for example searches for "Robert" would pull up records with "Bob" in them.

Answer 1

Just found a page where someone named Jon Moniaci exactly how to do this: http://bitsandpieces.jonmoniaci.com/2010/05/searching-common-nicknames-in-solr/

Basically, create a synonyms file with lines like so:

Bob, Robert, Bobby

(Jon's file is here, derived from the listing of common male and female nicknames on http://usefulenglish.ru/)

Save to english_names.txt and add the following to your solr configuration:

<fieldType name="textEnglishName" class="solr.TextField" positionIncrementGap="100">
      <analyzer type="index">
        <tokenizer class="solr.WhitespaceTokenizerFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.WordDelimiterFilterFactory" generateWordParts="1" generateNumberParts="1" catenateWords="1" catenateNumbers="1" catenateAll="0" splitOnCaseChange="1"/>
        <filter class="solr.ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.LowerCaseFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.RemoveDuplicatesTokenFilterFactory"/>
      </analyzer>
      <analyzer type="query">
        <tokenizer class="solr.WhitespaceTokenizerFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.SynonymFilterFactory" synonyms="english_names.txt" ignoreCase="true" expand="true"/>
        <filter class="solr.WordDelimiterFilterFactory" generateWordParts="1" generateNumberParts="1" catenateWords="0" catenateNumbers="0" catenateAll="0" splitOnCaseChange="1"/>
        <filter class="solr.ASCIIFoldingFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.LowerCaseFilterFactory"/>
        <filter class="solr.RemoveDuplicatesTokenFilterFactory"/>
      </analyzer>
</fieldType>

Then designate the author field as a textEnglishName field:

<fields>
  <field name="name" type="textEnglishName" indexed="true" stored="false"/>
</fields>