6. A method comprising: recognizing a plurality of textual strings within a written work, wherein each textual string is associated with a character identity of a plurality of character identities within the written work; for the character identity; calculating, by one or more hardware processors, a significance value based at least in part on a frequency of occurrence of one or more textual strings associated with the character identity; determining that the character identity is included in other written works; updating the significance value for the character identity based at least in part on the inclusion of the character identity in the other written works; and selecting a primary textual string from the one or more textual strings associated with the character identity; and providing a list of at least a portion of the plurality of character identities, the list including the primary textual string and other primary textual strings for the at least the portion of the plurality of character identities and the list being sorted based at least in part on the significance value.
18. The method as recited in claim 6 , further comprising: identifying a motion picture corresponding to the written work; comparing the one or more textual strings associated with the character identity to a collection of motion picture character names; selecting, for the character identity, a motion picture character name from the collection of motion picture character names that most closely matches the one or more textual strings associated with the character identity; and associating the motion picture character name selected with the character identity in the written work.