Before you can use this recipe, you will want to have a list of names to work with. If you don't have a list of names, you might want to consider first performing an open source intelligence exercise on your target.

The following code will take a file containing a list of names and generate a list of e-mail addresses in varying formats:

import sys

if len(sys.argv) !=3:
  print "usage: %s name.txt email suffix" % (sys.argv[0])
  sys.exit(0)
for line in open(sys.argv[1]):
  name = ''.join([c for c in line if c == " " or c.isalpha()])
  tokens = name.lower().split()
  fname = tokens[0]
  lname = tokens[-1]
  print fname+lname+sys.argv[2]
  print lname+fname+sys.argv[2]
  print fname+"."+lname+sys.argv[2]
  print lname+"."+fname+sys.argv[2]
  print lname+fname[0]+sys.argv[2]
  print fname+lname+fname+sys.argv[2]
  print fname[0]+lname+sys.argv[2]
  print fname[0]+"."+lname+sys.argv[2]
  print lname[0]+"."+fname+sys.argv[2]
  print fname+sys.argv[2]
  print lname+sys.argv[2]

The main mechanism in this recipe is the use of string concatenation. By joining up the first name or first initial with the last name in different combinations with an e-mail suffix, you have a list of potential e-mail addresses that you can then use in a later test.

The recipe featured shows how a list of names can be used to generate a list of e-mail addresses. However, not all the e-mail addresses will be valid. You could further narrow this list by using enumeration techniques in a company's application that may reveal whether an e-mail address exists. You could also perform further open source intelligence investigations, which may allow you to determine the correct format for the target organization's e-mail addresses. If you manage to achieve this, you can then remove any unnecessary formats from the recipe to generate a more concise list of e-mail addresses that will provide greater value to you later on.

Once you've got your e-mail addresses, you may want to use them as part of the Checking username validity recipe.