6. A computer program product for assessing similarity between character strings, the computer program product comprising: a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to: calculate an initial similarity score for a first character string and a second character string based on an edit distance algorithm; identify the first character string and the second character string as candidate similar character strings from a collection of character strings based on the calculated initial similarity score being greater than or equal to a similarity threshold value; determine, when the first character string and the second character string are identified as similar character strings, a frequency of occurrence for at least one of the first character string and the second character string from the collection of character strings, wherein the frequency of occurrence comprises a total number of times that at least one of the first character string and the second character string is present in the collection of character strings; decrease an occurrence of false designations of character strings as being similar, the decreasing further comprising: adjusting the initial similarity score to a greater value as a final similarity score only when the determined frequency of occurrence is no greater than a low frequency threshold, adjusting the initial similarity score to a lower value as the final similarity score when the frequency of occurrence is greater than a high frequency threshold value, and designating the first character string and the second character string as similar based on the final similarity score being greater than or equal to the similarity threshold value.
6. A computer program product for assessing similarity between character strings, the computer program product comprising: a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to: calculate an initial similarity score for a first character string and a second character string based on an edit distance algorithm; identify the first character string and the second character string as candidate similar character strings from a collection of character strings based on the calculated initial similarity score being greater than or equal to a similarity threshold value; determine, when the first character string and the second character string are identified as similar character strings, a frequency of occurrence for at least one of the first character string and the second character string from the collection of character strings, wherein the frequency of occurrence comprises a total number of times that at least one of the first character string and the second character string is present in the collection of character strings; decrease an occurrence of false designations of character strings as being similar, the decreasing further comprising: adjusting the initial similarity score to a greater value as a final similarity score only when the determined frequency of occurrence is no greater than a low frequency threshold, adjusting the initial similarity score to a lower value as the final similarity score when the frequency of occurrence is greater than a high frequency threshold value, and designating the first character string and the second character string as similar based on the final similarity score being greater than or equal to the similarity threshold value. 7. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the collection of character strings is partitioned based on one or more attributes of the character strings, and the computer readable program code is further configured to determine the frequency of occurrence by: identifying a specific partition of the collection of character strings based on an attribute of the first character string and the second character string; and determining the frequency of occurrence of at least one of the first character string and the second character string from the specific partition of the collection of character strings.