“We want to help you answer that age-old question: what’s in a name? Ever wondered where your name comes from? Ever wondered where it’s going? WhitePages Names is here for you to indulge your curiosity. From the common (there are 3,551,763 Johns in the United States) to the rare (there are 411 people named Jv), we can help you find the information you want, and maybe even have some fun.”
If you’re like me and many other people out there who are interested in names, then this site is perfect for you. Perhaps you have a baby on the way or know someone who is expecting. Maybe you just got a new pet and have no idea what to name it. Perhaps you’ve come across a name that you have no clue how to pronounce. Then White Pages Names is definitely a site to check out!
Upon entering the home page, you can see a “Name of the Day” Today’s name is Theodore and the image below shows exactly what it looks like on the home page. Each day will feature a new name and tell specific info about that name such as how it is pronounced, the meaning and the rank in US. For example Theodore is ranked 397th in the US for 2011.
Now onto the fun part! The home page alone is so much fun, I haven’t even clicked around much yet. At the top of the page is the “Name of the Day”. Below that, you can browse names by letter, find the most popular first names and then you can browse the most popular first names by letter!
I was quite surprised to see Mary and James as the most popular names. They just seem so common and have been around for a very long time! I guess good names just never get old.
As mentioned above, you can browse the most popular names by letter. Our very own Anne and Amanda are at the top of that list! I’ll have to share this with them for sure!
Of course, curious minded as I am, I had to see what the letter “M” held for popular names. I was not surprised one bit to see my name on that list. In elementary school, there were four girls names Melissa in my grade alone! I also found that three of my cousins’ as well as my soon to be MIL’s names were all on that list. However, Mary isn’t; even though it was listed as the most popular first name.
Playing around in the popular “B” names, I found my dad’s. That made me smile. My son’s wasn’t found in the popular “C” names, but that does not surprise me. The Man has a really uncommon name, so we didn’t want common names for our boys.
I clicked on “Discover” next and found the little tidbit below quite interesting!
“We have organized the most popular first and last names by state, city and year. Of course, WhitePages.com didn?t exist in 1910, so we used the Social Security Administration’s popular birth names for pre-Internet days. If popularity isn?t your thing, you can even browse names by their meaning to find that perfect child’s name or finally understand why your parents named you Mark – meaning “God is gracious”“
On this page you can find the most popular first and last names by state and city, the most and least popular by time and you can search by meaning. Below are the most and least popular by time.
It was quite interesting to see that the 8 most popular names in the last century are all female names! I guess girls really do rule!
After this I searched names by meaning. The first I clicked on “Noble” led me directly to my dad’s name “Brian” again. This morning started off pretty bad, so I’m wondering if he’s reaching out from beyond to comfort me somehow!
The image above is some of the information from that page. In February 2011, there were 1,060,285 people named Brian. I’m assuming he was included in that count since he didn’t pass away until March. Wisconsin is #2 in the amount of people named Brian.
Although I always knew my name means “Honey Bee”, I searched anyway and had to laugh at the meaning.
“From the Greek word melissa ?honey bee?. It is the name of the good witch who releases Rogero from the power of the bad witch Alcina in Ariosto’s narrative poem Orlando Furioso (1532). The name was fairly popular in the 1990s, along with other girls? names sharing the same first syllable.”
It’s funny because I got sucked into a MMORPG game a few years ago and my first characters were a Warlock and Mage. Perhaps I have some secret “witchy” abilities that I’m unaware of!
The nicknames above gave me a pretty good laugh too! People have always called me “Melis” of course, but I was surprised to find “Melika” on there. Years ago, my cousin’s friend accidentally called me that by mistake, getting tongue tied or something. It was so funny, we even joked about it years later!
Ok, so you’ve seen the fun I’ve had with this site over the past hour and a half! Now it’s your turn. I dare you! Check out White Pages Names and see what your name means. Check out names from other people you know. It’s really quite interesting. When the kids get home later this afternoon, I’m going to show them so they can play around. You should have seen them when they found the “baby name” book last year when we were moving. They didn’t put it down for days. This is going to be even better!
