A system and method to obtain a nickname for records, particularly records having number fields. A set of triplets is identified in a record 401. Criteria, at least at a strict level, is set to establish that used triplets are many, and hard to avoid 403. Using this criteria, triplets may be processed in order 405. Each triplet is checked against the criteria 407. Avoidance of the used criteria, i.e. that the current triplet is not used, enables the triplet to be associated with the record 413. Failure to avoid the used criteria enables a loop to continue if the exit criteria 409 is not met. A next triplet is obtained 410 if the inner loop continues. Otherwise, a check to get a more relaxed used triplet criteria is made 411. If a relaxed used triplet criteria is available 411, the relaxed used triplet criteria (having fewer used triplets) is used 415, and an outer loop continues with processing of the list of triplets 405 again. Otherwise, a triplet may manually be associated with the record 417.