Sources & credits

Meanings and etymologies: Wiktionary

The etymology text on each name page, and the facts behind our one-line meanings, come from Wiktionary, the free dictionary, by its contributors. It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each name page links to the exact Wiktionary revision we used.

Changes: we show Wiktionary’s etymology and surname text as plain text, without its links or formatting. Our one-line meanings are rewordings of that text. Those rewordings, and the etymology text on our pages, are shared under the same licence, CC BY-SA 4.0. The licence covers the name data only, not this site’s code or design.

US counts and ranks: the US Census Bureau

How many people in the US have each name, and its rank, come from the 2010 Census surname file published by the U.S. Census Bureau. It lists surnames held by 100 or more people. Our rarity bands are drawn from it: Rare means fewer than 2,500 people, Uncommon 2,500 to 20,000, and Common over 20,000.

Our editorial picks

Which names we include, and the vibe tags (old money, French & Norman, nature, soft & romantic, dark & gothic, noun names), are our own choices, not facts from a source. The “for characters” groupings are our picks too.

What we never do

• We never invent a name or a meaning.
• When a name has no cited meaning, we show none. Those names appear in the lists but have no page of their own.
• Today 254 names have a cited meaning, shown in each name’s details.

Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we’ll check it against the source.