ListMatchGenie

Supported regions

Per-region reference for all 20 supported regions — postal-code formats, particle handling, diacritic folding, and specific examples.

ListMatchGenie ships with validated per-region modules for 20 regions. Each module handles that region's naming conventions, particles, compound surnames, diacritic folds, and postal-code formats. This page is the detailed per-region reference.

Canonical list (20 regions)

US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, and Brazil.

Grouped by linguistic affinity:

  • English-speaking (6): US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
  • Western Europe — DACH + Benelux (4): Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands
  • Southern Europe (4): France, Spain, Italy, Portugal
  • Nordic (3): Sweden, Norway, Denmark
  • Eastern Europe (1): Poland
  • Latin America (2): Mexico, Brazil

Radius-match precision summary

Every region supports ZIP/postal radius matching using a single unified GeoNames-backed database (CC-BY 4.0, with Royal Mail data for GB). Precision varies by region because national postal authorities license fine-grained data differently:

  • Full precision (18 regions) — unit-level postcode centroids, Haversine distance in miles: US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Mexico.
  • City precision (1 region) — municipality-level only, scoring curve widens: Brazil.
  • District precision (1 region) — routing-key only, same-district / adjacent-district scoring: Ireland (Eircode is licensed and GeoNames redacts unit-level data).

The per-region entries below call out the precision tier alongside other regional notes.

Per-region reference

United States (US)

  • Postal format: 5-digit ZIP (94107) and ZIP+4 (94107-1234)
  • Radius precision: full (≈41k ZIPs)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; optional suffix (Jr., Sr., III)
  • Particles: none typical
  • Examples: Robert Smith Jr., Mary Ann O'Brien

United Kingdom (UK)

  • Postal format: alphanumeric postcode (SW1A 1AA, M1 1AE)
  • Radius precision: full (≈1.8M unit postcodes, Royal Mail-enriched)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; hyphenated surnames common
  • Particles: occasional (Mc, Mac, O')
  • Examples: Oliver Smith-Jones, Siobhan O'Connor

Ireland (IE)

  • Postal format: Eircode (D02 X285) — 7 characters, routing key + unique identifier
  • Radius precision: district (routing-key only — Eircode is licensed)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; Gaelic naming common
  • Particles: O', Mac, Ní, Ó
  • Examples: Aoife Ní Bhriain, Padraig Ó Súilleabháin

Canada (CA)

  • Postal format: alphanumeric (M5V 3A8)
  • Radius precision: full (≈900k unit postcodes)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; Québécois French-origin names common
  • Particles: saint-prefixes in French-Canadian (St-, Ste-, Saint-)
  • Specific handling: St-Pierre ↔ Saint-Pierre equivalence
  • Examples: Jean-François Tremblay, Marie St-Pierre

Australia (AU)

  • Postal format: 4-digit postcode (2000)
  • Radius precision: full (≈3k postcodes)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last
  • Particles: none typical
  • Examples: Jack Williams, Charlotte Brown

New Zealand (NZ)

  • Postal format: 4-digit postcode (6011)
  • Radius precision: full (≈1.7k postcodes)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; Māori naming supported
  • Particles: none typical; hyphenated Māori surnames preserved
  • Examples: Te Awhina Waititi, James Cooper

Germany (DE)

  • Postal format: 5-digit PLZ (10115)
  • Radius precision: full (≈10k PLZ centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; nobility particle von/zu preserved
  • Diacritic fold: ä → ae, ö → oe, ü → ue, ß → ss
  • Specific handling: Müller ↔ Mueller ↔ Muller all collapse to one match key
  • Examples: Hans-Jürgen Müller, Karl von Habsburg

Austria (AT)

  • Postal format: 4-digit PLZ (1010)
  • Radius precision: full (≈2k PLZ centroids)
  • Naming: as Germany; some Slavic-origin surnames
  • Diacritic fold: same as Germany (ä/ö/ü/ß)
  • Examples: Johann Strauß ↔ Strauss, Maria Schöne ↔ Schoene

Switzerland (CH)

  • Postal format: 4-digit PLZ (8001)
  • Radius precision: full (≈3k PLZ centroids)
  • Naming: tri-lingual — German / French / Italian depending on canton
  • Diacritic fold: German conventions in German-speaking cantons; French conventions in Romandy; Italian conventions in Ticino
  • Examples: Roger Müller (German-speaking), Pierre Dupont (French-speaking), Giovanni Rossi (Italian-speaking)

Netherlands (NL)

  • Postal format: 4-digit + 2-letter (1012 JS)
  • Radius precision: full (≈470k unit postcodes)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; particle chain preserved (van, van der, van den, de, den, ter)
  • Specific handling: Johan van der Berg ↔ J. van der Berg ↔ Van der Berg, Johan
  • Examples: Henk van der Laan, Maaike de Vries

France (FR)

  • Postal format: 5-digit code postal (75001)
  • Radius precision: full (≈20k code postal centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; compound first names with hyphens common
  • Particles: de, du, de la, le
  • Diacritic fold: é/è/ê/ë → e, ç → c, à/â → a, ô → o, ï → i
  • Examples: Jean-Pierre Dupont, Héloïse de la Fontaine

Spain (ES)

  • Postal format: 5-digit código postal (28001)
  • Radius precision: full (≈11k CP centroids)
  • Naming: Given-name(s) + paternal surname + maternal surname (María Isabel García López)
  • Particles: de, de la, del
  • Specific handling:
    • Single full-name column with 4–5 tokens correctly segmented into given/paternal/maternal
    • Paternal surname is primary match key; maternal surname is secondary signal
    • María García ↔ María García López matches without false positives
  • Diacritic fold: ñ → n, á/é/í/ó/ú → a/e/i/o/u
  • Examples: María Isabel García López Hernández, Juan de la Cruz

Italy (IT)

  • Postal format: 5-digit CAP (00100)
  • Radius precision: full (≈5k CAP centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last
  • Particles: di, della, del, de, la
  • Diacritic fold: à/è/é/ì/ò/ù → a/e/e/i/o/u
  • Examples: Giuseppe Di Stefano, Maria della Valle

Portugal (PT)

  • Postal format: 4-digit + 3-digit (1000-001)
  • Radius precision: full (≈200k unit postcodes)
  • Naming: Given name(s) + maternal family + paternal family; often with particles
  • Particles: da, das, do, dos, de
  • Specific handling: particle chains treated as part of the surname (da Silva Santos)
  • Diacritic fold: ã → a, õ → o, ç → c, plus standard accents
  • Examples: João da Silva Santos, Maria de Fátima

Sweden (SE)

  • Postal format: 5-digit postnummer (114 35)
  • Radius precision: full (≈19k postnummer centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last
  • Diacritic fold (Swedish): å → a, ä → a, ö → o (Åke ↔ Ake, Björn ↔ Bjorn)
  • Examples: Åke Lindqvist, Björn Bergström

Norway (NO)

  • Postal format: 4-digit postnummer (0150)
  • Radius precision: full (≈5k postnummer centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last
  • Diacritic fold (Norwegian): æ → ae, ø → o, å → a
  • Examples: Øystein Hansen, Kåre Haugland

Denmark (DK)

  • Postal format: 4-digit postnummer (1050)
  • Radius precision: full (≈1k postnummer centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last
  • Diacritic fold (Danish): æ → ae, ø → o, å → a (Søren ↔ Soren, Ærø ↔ Aero)
  • Examples: Søren Kierkegaard, Åse Jensen

Poland (PL)

  • Postal format: NN-NNN (00-001)
  • Radius precision: full (≈20k PNA centroids)
  • Naming: First [Middle] Last; gendered surname endings (-ski/-ska)
  • Diacritic fold: ł → l, ń → n, ś → s, ż → z, ź → z, ć → c, ą → a, ę → e
  • Examples: Krzysztof Kowalski, Małgorzata Nowak

Mexico (MX)

  • Postal format: 5-digit código postal (01000)
  • Radius precision: full (≈32k código postal centroids)
  • Naming: Spanish convention — given-name(s) + paternal surname + maternal surname
  • Particles: de, de la, del
  • Specific handling: same as Spain (paternal primary, maternal secondary)
  • Diacritic fold: same as Spain
  • Examples: Juan Carlos Hernández García, Ana Lucía de la Torre

Brazil (BR)

  • Postal format: CEP NNNNN-NNN (01310-100)
  • Radius precision: city (municipality centroids only — CEP-level redacted)
  • Naming: Portuguese convention — given-name(s) + maternal family + paternal family
  • Particles: da, das, do, dos, de
  • Specific handling: particle chains preserved as surname-chain elements (Ana da Silva dos Santos)
  • Diacritic fold: same as Portugal (ã/õ → a/o, accents → base characters)
  • Examples: Ana Paula da Silva dos Santos, José de Oliveira

Not yet supported (roadmap)

The following are on our roadmap but aren't in the product today — we'll ship each when we can do it as well as we handle the current 20 regions:

  • CJK — Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean (name-order conventions, transliteration ambiguity, script composition)
  • Right-to-left scripts — Arabic, Hebrew, Persian (bidi rendering, multiple romanizations, patronymic conventions)
  • Indic languages — Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and others (transliteration complexity, multi-script realities)
  • Thai and Vietnamese (tone marks, syllable segmentation)
  • Finnish (specific linguistic structure; may add later if demand warrants)

Files containing records from unsupported regions still upload and store correctly. A generic Latin fallback — Unicode NFKD normalization, accent stripping, generic particle handling — attempts matching on any Latin-transliterated portions.

Mixed-region files

A single match job can contain records from any mix of the 20 supported regions. The engine applies region detection per row (based on postal code, country column, or name signals) and uses the appropriate regional module for each.