What's In a Name?

NPR | By Liane Hansen

Published November 10, 2002 at 12:00 AM EST

Host Liane Hansen talks with Jack Hermansen, whose company, Language Analysis Systems, has created a tool that helps law-enforcement officials and corporations track difficult-to-spell foreign names. The Name Reference Library was used by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents to reconstruct the movements of the 9/11 hijackers in Florida.

Liane Hansen

Liane Hansen has been the host of NPR's award-winning Weekend Edition Sunday for 20 years. She brings to her position an extensive background in broadcast journalism, including work as a radio producer, reporter, and on-air host at both the local and national level. The program has covered such breaking news stories as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Columbia shuttle tragedy. In 2004, Liane was granted an exclusive interview with former weapons inspector David Kay prior to his report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The show also won the James Beard award for best radio program on food for a report on SPAM.