Introducing AI name inference: get first names from email addresses

OhBounce.ai now returns firstName and lastName fields on every validated address, inferred by our model from the local part of the email. Here's how the model works and when to trust it.

One of the most common requests we've heard from customers is: 'Can you tell me the person's name from the email address?' For addresses like [email protected], it seems obvious. But what about jsmith@, j.s.84@, or johnnyS92@? This is where machine learning helps.

How the model works

We trained a sequence model on millions of email addresses paired with known first and last names from opt-in datasets. The model learns patterns in how people structure their email addresses — first.last, firstlast, f.last, first_last, and countless regional variations. It also uses the domain as a signal: a corporate domain with an employee directory pattern behaves differently from a Gmail address.

Accuracy benchmarks

On our test set, the model achieves 84% accuracy on first name and 79% accuracy on last name for addresses that include recognizable name components. For addresses that are alphanumeric (e.g. user84921@), the model returns null rather than guessing. We'd rather return nothing than return confidently wrong data.

When firstName is not null, it's right 84% of the time. When it is null, that's the model telling you it doesn't have enough signal — not that the person's name can't be determined.

How to use it in your product

The firstName and lastName fields are returned alongside the standard validation result at no extra cost. Use them to pre-fill onboarding forms, personalise welcome emails, or enrich your CRM without a separate enrichment step. Always check for null before using the value, and give users the ability to correct the inferred name in their profile.

Privacy and consent

Name inference is performed on-device in our validation infrastructure — no names are stored or associated with specific addresses beyond the duration of the API call. The model runs inference only; it doesn't maintain a lookup table of email-to-name mappings. This is consistent with GDPR data minimisation principles.