# Turkish Numeric Soundex

> A C# Soundex adaptation for Turkish names that normalizes Turkish-specific characters and packs the conventional phonetic code into a single Int32 candidate key.

- Author: Muhammet Ali Köker
- Language: en
- Canonical: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/turkish-numeric-soundex
- Translation: https://alikoker.com.tr/turkish-numeric-soundex
- Published: 2018-03-15T12:00:00+03:00
- Modified: 2026-08-27T10:36:29+03:00
- Verified: 2026-08-27T10:36:29+03:00
- Type: project

The role of this component is deliberately modest: shrink a name-search candidate set before a more expensive comparison stage. It preserves the familiar Soundex idea while making Turkish-specific choices explicit, including handling for `Ç`, `Ğ` and `Ş` and normalization of an initial Turkish character into the compact code space.

A small implementation choice matters in high-volume grouping. Instead of returning the conventional four-character form such as `S530` as a freshly allocated string, the representation is packed deterministically into one `Int32`. That value can be used directly as a hash/grouping key without turning the phonetic code into an object-heavy intermediate format.

Equal keys are not proof that two names identify the same person. Collisions are expected; this is candidate generation, not authentication or linguistic inference. When the task is actual syllable boundary generation rather than phonetic pre-indexing, [Turkish Finite-State Syllabifier](/en/turkish-finite-state-syllabifier) uses a different formal model.

Article: [Turkish Phonetic Matching with Numeric Soundex](/en/turkish-phonetic-matching-with-numeric-soundex)

Source code: [GitHub](https://github.com/alikoker/turkish-numeric-soundex)  
Zenodo: [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/records/22117397)  
DOI: [DOI](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22117397)

## Cite This Work

Köker, M. A. (2018). Turkish Numeric Soundex. alikoker.com.tr. https://alikoker.com.tr/en/turkish-numeric-soundex

- BibTeX: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/turkish-numeric-soundex.bib
- RIS: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/turkish-numeric-soundex.ris
- CSL-JSON: https://alikoker.com.tr/en/turkish-numeric-soundex.csl.json