 Thursday, July 31, 2003 Institute for Naming Children Humanely. Some rules and warnings on what not to name your kids. Unfortunately, some people completely disregard them. I guess in some cases, preganancy brings on delusions of grandeur. Name Our Baby. These crazy people want the online community to help in naming their child. Warning: really annoying embedded midi even though the page design itself is rather quite tasteful. Names and Their Meaning. From vengelis.com. Besides an alphabetized list of names, they have a list of popular superstitions. The Names of Christ. All the names that Jesus is referred to. I consider this a companion link to all the names of Satan (July 28). Cult of the Almighty Dave. This is a club for anyone who is named "Dave." Of course, you can also join the club if you aren't Dave. There's some process of getting "Daved" which "involves accepting the Almighty Dave as the one and only true Dave." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:52 AM | link] Wednesday, July 30, 2003 Name Statistics. (via Shawn Allison) "Have you ever wondered how your name stacks up against all the others? Do you have one of the most common names or a rare name? Try your first name out and then try your last name out above! Our search engine will tell you what your name's rank really is!" Enter your name(s) and the statistics will also come with a code so you can put it in your weblog in meme-style. Based on the 2000 U.S. census. Name Street USA. Not quite as extensive as the Kalabarians, but you can input a name and besides getting the origins and traditional meanings, there's also brief blurbs on character and intelligence. Obviously, that's not going to be very accurate. Rebecca's Baby Names Site. Yet another amateur list of names. Aboriginal Names and Stories. The best part of this site is its cultural aspect. There's plenty of info on Australian Aboriginal folklore and myths. Eponym.org. For those of you curious about the origin of names. The Naming of Things. There's an extensive list of online nicknames. Of course, I think that if the name exists on the list, it means that the name is already taken by somebody. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:43 AM | link] Tuesday, July 29, 2003 Name That Baby: A Guide for Soon-to-be Parents. This whopping 30 names list from the Modern Humorist has such gems as: Britney--Though primarily associated with the recently famous pop singer Britney Spears, Britney actually dates back to 1982, when she was born. Glaucoma--More of an eye disease than a name befitting a child, Glaucoma strikes millions of Americans every year. We Can't Think of a Name. Let these people think of a name for you. Includes lists of horse, house, and boat names. Name That Kid. You can put in reasons of why you named your kid. On the list of submissions, there are some pretty ridiculous names. Those people are better off being romance novelists. How Cuchulainn got his Name. This little myth is probably more suited to small kids wanting to hear a story, but interesting nonetheless. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:44 AM | link] Monday, July 28, 2003 Spanish Names. Includes lists of first names and last names of Spanish origin as well as their rankings. Other Names of Satan. A list of Satan's different names from the Bible. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit ironic that the list is hosted on a Christian site? Baby Name Scramble. This site is trying to sell some program which helps you generate a variety of baby names from scrambling other names together. There is a free demo on the site though. Upper West Side Manhattan Chinese Restaurant Name Generator. A fun and silly site to waste some of your time on. "The List". Famous people who have a first name for a last name. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:17 AM | link] Sunday, July 27, 2003 Baby Names Directory. Submit new names to this directory and get points! I'm not sure what contributors get besides a ranking on how prolific they are at name submissions. Persian Names. Yet another list. The Funny Name Server. "Admit it. As you were looking up a number in the phone book, a funny listing caught your eye. You chuckled at the poor guy whose name is also a curse word. Then you thought, If I had nothing better to do, what other funny names could I find in the phone book?" The Name Site. This is primarily a database of African names. There's also a neat list of African proverbs. White Lesbian Name Generator. It's probably politically incorrect but it is a rather funny yet stupid name generator. (Example: I put in "Bob Smith" and got back "Fish Singing Fruit.") [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:34 AM | link] Saturday, July 26, 2003 U.S. Surname Distribution. Put in your last name, hit the display button, and you can get the population distribution of your surname. I put in mine and got a colored map. In most states, mine was 1 in 10,000 (and possibly less) but in more populous states like California and New York, I got as much as 1 in 1,000. Foreign Name Cross-Reference. When people immigrated west, many changed their last names for easier spelling, easier pronunciation, or just to reflect their new life. This nifty database cross-references various Eastern European surnames. Warning: pdf files. Geolex. "The Geolex database contains 16,005 entries. 75% of the unit names from the USGS Geologic Names Committee (GNC) card catalog have been entered in the database. Several thousand unit names remain to be checked and entered." Babynamer on Oxygen. Although this is another generic baby name search tool (which is probably useful for people looking for relatively common names), the unique thing about this one is that it provides a "list of the day" for inspiration. Today's lists are the signers of the Declaration of Independence and some female astronauts. Pet Names. This amateur Geocities site has over 2100 pet names. Warning: embedded music. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:41 AM | link] Friday, July 25, 2003 Names You Never Knew Existed.... Beware. These names are really bad (and often raunchy) puns. Family Name: A Film by Macky Alston. "Chronicles the surprising twists and turns of the director's search for the descendants of the slaves and slave owners who lived on the plantations once owned by his family." Celebrity Baby Name Index. Some of those movie stars really have no clue how to name kids. French Name Search. You can also find statistics on a given name. The Name & Meanings Search Engine. Hm. You can also get your horoscope on this site. Thai Baby Name. At least I assume you can search for a Thai Baby Name. The entire site is in Thai--which I can't read. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:45 AM | link] Thursday, July 24, 2003 Official New Bride Name Change Kit. A kit?! This should be a joke. Place Name Servers on the Internet. All right, this will probably be the last link in a while with place names. This site has compiled all the sites on the internet that deal with place names. Names in Japanese. There are over 2000 names in this database. Each name is also drawn out in Japanese calligraphy besides listing it in pronunciation, Hirangana, Katakana, Kanji, and their meanings. Iranian Names. Includes pronunciation guide. Real Names of Famous Folk. Yet another page. Beautiful Names Website. The goal of this website is to memorize the ninety-nine names of Allah. If you mouse-over the images of the names, you can also hear how they are pronounced. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:12 AM | link] Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Hitchcock's Bible Names. You can search for biblical names. Not only can you input whole name queries, but you can put in partials to get a list of similar names. Canadian Geographical Names. A very clean site which can be accessed in either English or French. The search engine for place names is fairly thorough and there are some excellent pdf downloads of geographical name collections. 20,000 Names. Separated by country and ethnicity. An Electronic Guide to Kentucky Place Names. The search actually takes you to a page where you can query for any place in the United states. The links to the other geographic resources are pretty interesting. IANA: Domain Name Services. Some info on domains and such. Probably more helpful for a newbie. Names of animals, babies, and groups. This probably has more to do with semantics and the quirks of the English language, but it's pretty helpful if you're trying to think up of alternative names for animals. Some that I found intriguing: shrewdness of apes, sloth of bears, flock of camels, piteousness of doves. Common Names of Plant Diseases. Very useful for the botanist. Or the gardener/farmer. Or for the biologist trying to find possible new vectors to transfer DNA from plant to plant. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:52 AM | link] Tuesday, July 22, 2003 The Uselessness of Names. The author of this page says: "For some reason, people are fond of putting up pages all about other people who have the same first name. On one hand, this is a pointless activity which serves no purpose I can readily identify." Gazetteer of British Place Names. A compendium of all the places in Great Britain. Also contains alternative spellings of place names in Welsh and Gaelic. Place names of Australia. You can search for any location in Australia as it contains over 297,000 entries. Washington Place Names Database. A site for place names in Washington state. Kanji Names Project. Kanji is a form of Japanese writing. There's a list of example names on the site as well as an explanation of how the Japanese choose names for their children. How to pronounce Finnish names. This is not your average dictionary with the weird symbols indicating how you should pronounce a word. This list of Finnish names has links to wav files where you can actually hear how the name should sound like. German Names. This is a page of links to other sites that deal with different aspects of German names: first, last, the unusual, and the history. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:04 AM | link] Monday, July 21, 2003 Star Names. Steven Gibson has compiled a table of commonly known star names and their definitions as pertaining to Western cosmology. This is really interesting because although I knew that the stars of each constellation were named according to their magnitude (i.e. alpha, beta, gamma, etc.), I didn't know that all of them had individual names. Everyone knows that Alpha Canis Major is "Sirius", but Beta Canis Major also has a name, "Mirzam" (which unfortunately doesn't have a translation). Glossary of Class Names of Organic Compounds and Reactive Intermediates Based on Structure. Whew! That was a mouthful. I've always had a fascination with chemical names, especially with their strict naming rules. Even though it's cumbersome, the naming convention allows you to figure out the structure of a molecule from the name alone. Abbreviations of Names of Serials. For the mathematicians among us. A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. "The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) was established to collect and publish all ancient Greek personal names. Our material is drawn from all available sources, from the earliest Greek written records to approximately the sixth century A.D." Tamalyn's Baby Names. Includes a forum, search engine, and database. Specializes in Welsh, Afghanistan, Indian, and Hawaiian baby names. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:08 AM | link] Sunday, July 20, 2003 World Directory of Pasta Shapes and Names. I knew there were different types of pasta just from going to the grocery store, but this is nearing ridiculous. Includes photos. Tribal Name Meanings and Alternative Names. The author of this extensive list of Native American names and their meanings has also written a Native American history book. 2000 Cat Names. Help in naming your kitten. Bird names translation index. This net application will help you translate bird names into nine different languages. French Baby Names. This about.com page has already sorted out the names so you can find only the ones with French origin. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:10 AM | link] Saturday, July 19, 2003 Name that Baby! Here's a weblog of a father documenting the process of naming his child. I suggest you begin at the first entries. I particularly liked this entry. Compendium of Pesticide Common Names. "For purposes of trade, registration and legislation, and for use in popular and scientific publications, pesticides need names that are short, distinctive, non-proprietary and widely-accepted. Systematic chemical names are rarely short and are not convenient for general use, and so standards bodies assign common names to pesticides. More than 1000 of these pesticide names have been assigned by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)." A Dictionary of Period Russian Names. I suppose this would be quite useful for authors working on an epic historical novel with Russia as its setting. BC Geographical Names. It's an entire database of place names in British Columbia, Canada. If you're just browsing, it's helpful to use wildcards on their search engine. Index to Organism Names. I think this is an essential resource for zoologists, but the one sided search (you have to search by the taxonomic or Latin name of the organism) is going to be of limited usefulness to beginner biology students let alone the layperson. Names 4 Pets. Another pet naming site. There's some sort of pet of the month contest on the site for those of you who like taking an inordinate amount of pictures of "Rover" or "Fluffy". [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:17 AM | link] Friday, July 18, 2003 Mythological Names. This isn't a list of gods and goddesses. Oh no, this is the pseudo-manifesto of a professor who calls himself Chief Crazy Dog. He makes his students choose their own "mythological names" and have them use that to turn all their work in. It reminds me of my high school Latin teacher who made everyone take up a mythological nickname to be used in class. Of course, that didn't work on me. My name already was a mythological deity. Latin Place Names. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the alphabetical index. You can find all sorts of places with names of Latin origin. Find Your Hawaiian Name. Based on the meaning of your name. Hawaiian Baby Names. It proports to be "perfect for middle names." Iranian Names. A comprehensive list. Famous Name Changes. Find out a particular famous person's name before they got it changed to something that everyone recognizes. Some of their former names are boring. And some are downright awful. (No wonder they changed it!) Union List of Artist Names On Line. Search or browse for any (visual) artist present or dead at the Getty. As an aside, if you ever happen to be in L.A. and you want to go to a museum, check out the Getty--it's awesome. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:47 AM | link] Thursday, July 17, 2003 Dinosaur Names. There aren't really a list of dinosaur names on this site, but there's a list of roots with meanings in Greek and Latin so that you can puzzle out the meaning of the names yourself. Index of Angel names, magical words, and names of God. I think of this as the companion site to the demon names link I mentioned on the 15th. This one, though, is a huge list. And even if you can't use one, it could be used as inspiration for a made-up name. This is on the site Twilit Grotto which contains tons of esoterica like grimoires. Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing. (via hanging-fire.net) Or more adequately, naming etiquette for soon-to-be parents by example of what not to do. It's funny and sadly true. And a generation from now, people will be harping on a completely different set of names. Arab Names. Each culture has its own naming conventions and Arab names are no different. Hopefully this will help make some sense of foreign names you might encounter. Muslim Names and Meanings. Yet another ethnic name oriented site. Cool Baby Names. This is not just "baby names"--it has to be cool baby names. Which brings up an aside. Why does it have to be baby names? Why not people names or person names? If I find my name in a baby name book/site, does that make me a baby? Maybe I'll find an answer to this someday. Pet Name Finder. I did a random search for "Fluffy" and it came up with nothing. Most of the names in the database are people/place names, which is good if you want to give your pet a rather dignified name. I did find, however, that "Fifi" was in there. They say it's a name for toy poodles. I say it's a perfectly good name for a bulldog too. 2000 Dog Names. It's pretty much a list. But beware of the barking soundfile on the front page. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:26 AM | link] Wednesday, July 16, 2003 Domain names & the "Google Effect". This is an oldie but goodie article from Plasticbag about the importance of domain names and searching. He's definitely right about one thing. Most searches have nothing to do with domain names. Brand names bring special brain buzz. Yet another old but applicable article, this time from the New Scientist. There's definitely something about brand names--why is it that people prefer and look more highly upon brand names than others? I find brand names janus-sided: it's good for the company that possesses the name because it is recognized by consumers, yet it also fosters ill-will between the haves and have-nots. I call it playground-envy. Generic domain names. Here's the brief thoughts of a weblogger on the difference between brand and generic domain names. (Also an older entry). Second Sight. (via The Trademark Blog which is an excellent niche blog in itself) Finally, something that is more recent! This Guardian article by David Weinberger points out the problems of personal websites using domain names that are personal names. Does this mean that parents have to stop being so traditional and start giving Junior more unique names? Heck no, just use some common sense and find a specific John Smith by adding modifiers to your search query. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:02 PM | link] Hurricane Names. It's a kids page, but useful nonetheless. It gives a bit of history about the convention of hurricane naming. Scroll down to the links where they already have hurricane names planned out to the year 2006. Indian Baby Names. These names mostly originate from India which includes Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain. Baby Name World. Search names via origin. The Doctor's Names List. This is a list of strange and unusual doctors' names. I believe this was mostly culled from MEDLINE and MEDLIB (two databases that specialize in medical papers). I find "Dr. Megahead" quite amusing. Name of Pets in Hawaiian. A cute page including pronunciation and translation into English. Glossary of Roots of Botanical Names. This is a haven for Latin and plant lovers. I'm no botanist and I only took one year of Latin in high school so I don't understand even half of it. List of Bacterial Names. On the other hand, this is totally my cup of tea. In real life, I work with bacteria so this site is a total must-have. I'm thinking of naming my make-believe kids Ecoli and Heliobacter--what do you think? Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names. Scientists are well known to venture into pun-city when discovering new chemicals, proteins, or genes. There's quite a few listed that should get their own pr0n movie. I like the acids: moronic acid, traumatic acid, erotic acid, diabolic acid, angelic acid, eurekamic acid, complicatic acid, performic acid, and of course, magic acid. Oh, and I just love penguinone. The International Plant Names Index. "The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of all seed plants. Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked. IPNI will be a dynamic resource, depending on direct contributions by all members of the botanical community." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:01 AM | link] Tuesday, July 15, 2003 Names of the Goetia demons. Including citations! Far from actually naming anyone after diaboloical monsters, this is an excellent mythology and demonology source. A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names. Includes links to philosophers, their works, biographies, and other information. Self-deprecating weblog names. Here's a list of blog names that includes "useless" and "daily drivel". Perhaps these bloggers inherently take the saying that 99% of the stuff on the internet is trash to heart. Behind the Name. What's unique about this site are their "Collections" (located on the side menu). I really liked browsing the "Name Days". Various cultures actually have certain names associated to different days of the year. Babynames.com. You can rate the Name of the Day (today's is "Hussein", heh) and there is a forum for parents-to-be. Baby Names Etc. One of their tips in the "Naming Your Baby" section is pretty much applicable to anything: Choose a name that will grow with your child. Do the lawyer test. Would you go to a lawyer named... Some names also identify age, like Margaret. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:13 AM | link] Monday, July 14, 2003 WISH 55: What's In A Name? (originally posted on Syaffolee) For you writers out there, here's an interesting article on naming your fictional characters. Me? I typically go through baby name sites, geneology sites, random name generator sites, and the citation section at the back of textbooks. And sometimes (gasp!) I make up a name from the top of my head. I tend to avoid my own name and names of people I know unless it's ridiculously common. I used to have a blog about names but it went kaput many, many months ago from a technical reason I could never fathom. I'm starting it up again sometime soon, elsewhere (here!). Get your goth name. A name generator for making up internet nicknames in the gothic style. 1990 Census Name Files. Find out first and last name popularity and frequency as determined from the 1990 census. Baby Chatter. Yet another ubiquitous baby naming site. The more popular names are organized alphabetically. There's also a section on name origins as well as "unique" names. Names at Parenthood.com. Features a "Quick Name Search" as well as an advanced search to determine name meanings. Baby name meanings at Make Way For Baby. Their database is actually quite inclusive containing variants of many names as well. Chinese Names. Lists the most common 200 Chinese surnames as of 1990. Mine's in there. It's a pictograph of vertebrae. At least I know I'm not spineless. Chinese Surnames. This one is a more extensive list. You can search easily by the Romanization of the surname to find out its meaning. DADA's Little Baby Namer. It's a surrealistic generator based on Markov Chain analysis. You can find a ridiculous name for your RPG/sci-fi characters. Or a completely unique name for your "little miracle". Fantasy Name Generator. Most applicable for fantasy writers wishing to make up names in the Katherine Kerr or J.R.R. Tolkien style. Get a Chinese Name. "Get your own Chinese name based on your English name and find out your sign in the Chinese Zodiac!" Jerry Hill Presents Names. This guy has an exhaustive list of links to name and name-related sites. One could spend months looking through it all. But some of the links are dead and there are no name generator sites listed. (And that's where this blog comes in: fresh links and silly generators!) NYC Department of Health Most Popular Baby Names List. This list was released in 1998 and only applicable to names popular in New York City (obviously). I see some interesting ethnic trends just by glancing at it. Places Named. Enter a name (be it a place or personal name) into the search box and get statistics that were collected from the 1990 census. Popular Baby Names from the Social Security Administration. This link has been making the rounds of blogs recently. The most interesting thing is the ability to tract the trends of names over the course of a century. What's in Your Name - Dictionary of Last Names. Enter your last name and check out its origin and meaning. What's in Your Name? Ah, the famous Kabalarian site with pretty much any name you can think of. What's impressive are their detailed analysis of each name--it's just like getting your horoscope drawn out by a certified psychic (not that I ever had that done...). [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:09 PM | link] |
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