matching names that are close by not always exact

Question

attempting to match a list of names that are similar in one very long column to another that are close but often vary do to missing letters and punctuation? is there a simple solution via a macro and/or sql?

Answer 1

using Levenstein functions can help check the function and algorithm here: Levenshtein distance in T-SQL

after you create a function - compare the distance, for example:

select ..... from....
where dbo.Levenstein(str1,str2)>0.9 --means, the match between str1 and str2 is 90%