What’s in a Name?

Here are a couple sites making the rounds that visualize name data. (Ooo. I love visualizing name data!) The first is the World Names Profiler. Punch your last name into the box, hit “search,” and you’ll see the distribution of folks who share your name all over the globe. Here’s mine:

There you go—quite a bit U.S.-heavy, with smatterings in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and… Argentina?! Well, how about that.

The other is the Name Voyager. Punch in your first name (or somebody else’s) and instantly see a graph of the name’s popularity over the years. Again, here’s mine:

Wow. Looks like I peaked in the ’70′s, with no comeback in sight. Oh well. Anyway, go give ‘em a try yourself!

1. 

   Allison Sachs says:

   September 12, 2008 at 1:17 pm

   The most common forename to my surname is… Lothar!
2. 

   Anthony says:

   September 13, 2008 at 1:45 am

   Well I figured the Europe part…never excepted to see India or a part of South America on there…
3. 

   Starr says:

   September 13, 2008 at 11:48 pm

   For reals…some of these names are iffy.

   I mean, seriously, ZELDA?!

   But, hey, Minverva and Athena are both names on there. Woot. I can now justify naming my children Artemis and Pomona!