These are slides for a talk at MK Geek Night, Thu 7 March 2019. Doug trained a neural network on the official database of placenames in England, then got it to generate its own suggestions. Some were convincing, some were funny, and some even turned out to be real places. Doug will give a bit of an explanation of how he did it, and show some of the best results.

1. HOW TO GET TO
RUNTER END
GENERATING PLACENAMES
WITH A NEURAL NETWORK
DOUG CLOW

2. • Old Functon, Oxfordshire
• Milly Load, Nottinghamshire
• Mounton in in the Woop,
Bath and North
East Somerset
Photo (CC)-BY Ganbreeder.app https://ganbreeder.app/i?k=0680da128cf010d9680f9639

3. What is a
neural
network?
Photo (CC)-BY-ND Hillel Steinberg https://flic.kr/p/2cz4VeK

4. A neural network learns patterns
• it can predict
• it can generate
… you just need enough examples
Photo (CC)-BY Freshwater2006 https://flic.kr/p/6Syq8m

5. Upton
Snodsbury
Woughton
on the Green
Woburn Sands
formerly
Hogsty End
© Paul Cox 2017
http://www.mkheritage.org.uk/wsc/
English placenames are funny
(CC)-BY Scorpions and Centaurs https://flic.kr/p/9m4FzQ

6. Open Names
1.61 Gb
>870,000 roads
~44,000 settlements
>1.6 million postcodes
mapped to National Grid
Map sample © 2019 Ordnance Survey

7. A bit of processing (95% of data science)
A bit of neural network training
32,637 names
1h on an old laptop
Photo by Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash

8. Tregounden, County of Herefordshire
Lower’s Common, Staffordshire
West Curwood, Hertfordshire
Kingstworth, Swinghamshire
Marton, Cumbria
Liston, Devon
Lewtin, West Sussex
Rykerook, Somerset
Little Sandy Park, Kent
Great Burton, Rutland
Topworth, North Yorkshire
St Egerperferton, County Durham
Photo (CC)-BY Ray in Manila https://flic.kr/p/zS6uGC

9. • Penty Fiehall,
Cumbria
• Lines,
Milton Keynes
• Glumhill,
Staffordshire
• Weetloss,
East Riding of
Yorkshire
Photo (CC)-BY Karen Roe https://flic.kr/p/mmyNb6

10. Runter End
• Wimmer, Bourcestershire
• Sniddington, County Durham
• Randiskerton, North Yorkshire
• Thornwithich, Pooestop
• Runter End, Cambridgeshire
Map data © 2019 Google

11. Thanks to:
Janelle Shane
http://aiweirdness.com/

12. Seeking new fun
data science work
@dougclow
Doug.Clow@gmail.com