What's not in a name. The accuracy of using names to ascribe religious and geographical origin in a British population.

Accepted for publication 12 August 1997 Studies that ascribe ethnic identity by name searching demonstrate variations in perinatal mortality and health service uptake between South Asians* and the general population, and between Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.12 We conducted a study to explore whether ethnic differences in immunisation rates exist in New castle upon Tyne, using data held on the New castle Child Health Register.3 In the absence of routinely recorded details of ethnic origin, we ascribed ethnicity using a name search tech nique. Although name searching has been vali dated for distinguishing South Asians from Europeans,4 its accuracy in differentiating South Asians of different geographical origin has been called into question.5 We validated our name search technique as follows.