sub UniqInits {

    # takes an array of unique names and returns a hashref { 'a man' => [ 'a', 'm'], ... }
    
    my %data;
    my $maxnames = 0;
    for my $name (@_) {
        chomp $name;
        my @names = split /[^\w]+/,$name;
        $maxnames = @names if @names > $maxnames;
        $_ = ucfirst lc $_ for @names;
        $data{ "@names" } = \@names;
    }

    for my $index ( 0 .. $maxnames ) {
        for my $person ( keys %data ) {
            next if ! $data{$person}[$index];
            my $old_name = $data{$person}[$index];
            for my $length ( 1 .. length $old_name ) {
                $data{$person}[$index] = substr( $old_name, 0, $length );
                my $match = 0;
                for ( keys %data ) {
                    next if $_ eq $person || @{$data{$_}} != @{$data{$person}};
                    my $test_name = $data{$_}[$index];
                    $data{$_}[$index] = substr( $test_name, 0, $length );
                    my ($s_name , $s_test) = ("@{$data{$person}}", "@{$data{$_}}");
                    $data{$_}[$index] = $test_name;
                    if ( $s_name eq $s_test ) {
                        $match = 1;
                        last;
                    }
                }
                last if ! $match;
            }
        }
    }

    for my $name (keys %data) {
        $data{$name} = join '',@{$data{$name}};
    }

    \%data;
}