# \[English name suggestion\] "FeatureImportanceCalculator", "\[.\]Estimator", "\[.\]Indicator" or what?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949
**Category:** Machine Learning
**Tags:** survey, english, terminology
**Created:** [May 7, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949 "2024-05-07T14:57:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949/1 "2024-05-07T14:57:38Z")
For a model that returns the ranking of the variables based on some “variable importance metric” to be used as:
```julia
m = ModelName(a_ML_model,options)
fit!(m,x,y)
var_importance_ranking = predict(m)
mda_losses = info(m)["mda"]
sobol_vars = info(m)["sobol"]
```
and that is going to join other existing models [on this list](https://sylvaticus.github.io/BetaML.jl/stable/#models_list), what would you use as “ModelName” ?
_Poll ([view on site](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949/1))_
Merci 🙃
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### Author:  [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 3:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949/2 "2024-05-07T15:41:42Z")
Not trying to sway the vote here but I think “Feature Importance” is a fairly well established name for this, and I’d use “Estimator” over “Calculator” as calculator implies an operation with a known correct result - 1+1=2 - while here we are estimating a (meta) parameter in a statistical model that doesn’t really have a “true” value.
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### Author:  [@PeterSimon](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PeterSimon)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 5:20pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949/3 "2024-05-07T17:20:05Z")
My “Other” vote would be FeatureRanking (or maybe FeatureRanker)
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### Author:  [@ablaom](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ablaom)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/english-name-suggestion-featureimportancecalculator-estimator-indicator-or-what/113949/4 "2024-05-07T21:31:52Z")
“Indicator” sounds weird to my ears but all the other options sound reasonable. I think the best “active noun” would be _FeatureRanker_. If you are going to break the active noun convention, I’d just go with _FeatureImportance_.
I’m not familiar with your API, but a pretty common application of the model will be to select only the top _n_ features. So perhaps you think of this as a transformer, regarding the actual importances as “byproducts” of training you can inspect if you want to. In that case, something like _FeatureImportanceSelector_ might work??