Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching (BMPM)

Alexander Beider, Paris
Stephen P. Morse, San Francisco





Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching (BMPM) is an algorithm developed by Alexander Beider and Stephen P. Morse to search a name list for names that are phonetically equivalent to the desired name.  It is similar to a soundex search in that an exact spelling is not required.  But unlike soundex, it does not generate a large quantity of false hits.

From the spelling of the name, an attempt is made to determine the language.  Phonetic rules for that particular language are then applied to transliterate the name into a phonetic alphabet.  If it is not possible to determine the language with a fair degree of certainty, generic phonetic rules are used instead. Finally, language-independent rules regarding such things as voiced and unvoiced consonants and vowels are applied to further insure the reliability of the matches.

Developers wishing to incorporate BMPM into their applications can do so by clicking on one of the links below to download the source files. The release notes can be found in the file bmphonetics.txt.

The following will run on all versions of PHP
Download BMPM version 3.15 May 29, 2022
Download BMPM version 3.14 July 6, 2021
Download BMPM version 3.13 December 15, 2020
Download BMPM version 3.12 January 21, 2020
Download BMPM version 3.11 February 6, 2019
Download BMPM version 3.10 January 4, 2018
Download BMPM version 3.09 September 8, 2017
Download BMPM version 3.08 September 3, 2017 -- buggy, do not use
Download BMPM version 3.07 February 1, 2017 -- buggy, do not use
Download BMPM version 3.06 October 25, 2016 -- buggy, do not use

The following will not run on versions of PHP beyond 5.02
Download BMPM version 3.05 Feb 22, 2016
Download BMPM version 3.04 Nov 3, 2014
Download BMPM version 3.03 Jun 29, 2014
Download BMPM version 3.02 Feb 01, 2014
Download BMPM version 3.01 Dec 19, 2011
Download BMPM version 3.00 Jun 22, 2011
Download BMPM version 2.11 Dec 10, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.10 Oct 05, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.09 Oct 05, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.08 Sep 29, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.07 Aug 29, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.06 Jul 11, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.05 Jun 02, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.04 May 25, 2010
Download BMPM version 2.03g Oct 27, 2009
Download BMPM version 2.03 Aug 19, 2009
Download BMPM version 2.02 Jul 06, 2009
Download BMPM version 2.01 Jun 20, 2009
Download BMPM version 2.00 Jun 18, 2009
Download BMPM version 1.01 May 28, 2009
Download BMPM version 1.00 May 06, 2009

The code is offered as Open Source under the GNU General Public License agreement. If you are incorporating BMPM into one of your applications, we would appreciate hearing from you.

More information on BMPM can be found in the following two papers:

Phonetic Matching: A Better Soundex
Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching: An Alternate to Soundex with Fewer False Hits
and a list of the phonetic tokens generated can be found at:
List of Phonetic Tokens

© Alexander Beider & Stephen P. Morse, 2008