Check our latest release of Names.WhitePages.com! This product brings a useful and fun resource to anybody interested in names and genealogy – but we think it’s especially useful for parents to be.
Baby Dominic
Not only can you explore potential names, but you can now uncover the origin, meaning, and popularity all in one place. We’re the only site where you can determine popularity for the Unique end of the name popularity spectrum, which is timely because this research from SDSU shows that more than ever parents want to give their children unique names.
In analyzing the names of some 325 million children born in 1880 or later, researchers from San Diego State University and the University of Georgia found just nine per cent of boys born in 2007 were given a “top 10″ name, compared with 32 per cent in 1955; for girls, only eight per cent had a top 10 name in 2007, versus 22 per cent in 1955.
We know that we’re not a one-stop-shop for naming your children, so here are some other recommended resources and methods we think you should try when choosing a name.
Do:
- Test it out in the wild
Try using your name at a restaurant where they have to call you when it’s time to be seated. Or yell it at a park. You may discover other ways people write it, say it, etc.
- Look through your own Genealogy
Nobody can fault a “family name” – adding that extra tie-in can really be great. Just be sure you pick the right side of the family and go back far enough or not too far so it’s not too “out there” – unless that’s what you’re looking for. (Love you great Great-great-grandpa Luigi and Great-great-grandma Luigia!). This is how my wife and I found our son’s name (Dominic – from a semi-distant uncle Dominici).
- Find out what it means
This is an area where we can help. Not that it’s the only factor, but if you’ve got it down to a few names, say “Portia” and “Felice”. Knowing that Portia means “Pig” and Felicia means “Lucky” may just push you in one direction or the other.
- Google it! Or make sure you’ll be able to.
How many people have that name? If your last name is “Smith” and you pick a common first name, you’ll probably never be able to have a site or page about you come up in a search result. Plus they’ll have to get real creative for email, Facebook, nicknames, and more. We’ve got you covered here, too – names.whitepages.com is the only place you can see how many people have that FULL name. (24k people name James Smith – you could fill a stadium with Jim, Jimmy, and James’!!)
- Start early
We have 200M people in our database, so you’ve got searching to do – get to it!
Don’t:
- Don’t tell anybody, especially the grandparents.
- Don’t wait until the last minute. See: Fetus (9 people named this), Boy (215), Baby (1,396).
- Don’t get too creative (see Million Dollar, Tag Euritt, or any of the Simpson’s names here)
- Don’t put it up to bid (sorry, Ebay and mechanical Turk can’t help you here – this is your first big parenting task, own it!).
- Don’t sweat it too much – whatever you pick will be the right name.
Want to be reached on your terms? We just launched a new feature that takes user control to a whole new level. You now have full control over how to be contacted and what identifying information we list for you. Start with your name – perhaps you go by a nickname or your middle name. Or you just want to be listed with your first initial. Then choose your preferred contact method: address, home phone, work phone, cell phone, text message, or email (the last two are masked, so users never see your email address or cell phone number). Finally, decide what identifying information you want to include so that people can be sure they are contacting the right person: household members, job title, company, or age. All of these are fully editable so that you can customize your listing just the way you like it. And if all of that isn’t cool enough to convince you, take this story as some inspiration…
Last summer, I found a Prada purse while walking to work. Inside, I found an ID with a name and address and then naturally looked the woman up on WhitePages. She had a home address listing but no way for me to get in touch with her immediately. Had she edited her listing prior to that incident, I could have called her cell, sent her a text message, or sent her an email to let her know I found her purse. Instead, it took days for her to be reunited with her belongings, which included a flash drive with her final paper for school on it!
To use this feature, you can either:
- Edit an existing listing by searching for yourself and clicking the “Is this you? Edit” link next to your name, or…
- Add a new one by clicking the “Add Your Listing” tab on the homepage.
From there just create a login and fill out the form. Please feel free to post your comments, questions, or concerns. I will be listening!
It’s pretty amazing to see that after hitting Top 4 in the overall free chart, over a year later the WhitePages iPhone application continues to be a Top 10 free reference application.
Ingrid Michelsen recently wrote about how WhitePages Mobile Moved From the Sidelines To The Limelight in 6 months and today we announce reaching over 2 million users on mobile.
We have learned a lot, sharing with MediaPost the importance of having ad-supported and paid models, innovating with new services like Caller ID, and why the carrier pipes are a lot smarter then folks give them credit for. In today’s Mobile Marketer, we offer some of the key success factors advertisers should consider around targeting, brand, and performance.
Leading the charge in the delivery of our mobile services is Bret Moore, the most productive mobile product executive in the industry. In the last year, Bret has led 6 key mobile product launches and 16 updates/new versions for new devices. Bret presented our Caller ID for Android at this years Google I/O conference. Check out all of the innovative products he has launched in the related posts section below or by clicking on his name.
Finally, our mobile services provide even more reasons why we no longer need the paper phone book. WhitePages Mobile gives you access to hundreds of millions of contacts, right at your fingertips, and on the go.
Let’s hug a tree and Ban The Phonebooks!
Follow us on Twitter for More Mobile Updates:
http://twitter.com/mooreb
http://twitter.com/knakao
On YouTube:
WhitePages Q&A Series – Mobile
I’m excited to share a fun new area of our site for you to explore that launched today, http://names.whitepages.com. We put a lot of time into making sure we have the most comprehensive coverage of people for you, and now we’ve used that expertise to provide a fresh new look into our data.
You can see how many people have your name as well as how often it’s been searched for on WhitePages.com. Since football season is about to start, I’ll highlight just one example related to that. There are over 1221 people with the last name Favre in the US. The highest concentration is in Mississippi – where the former current former current NFL QB Brett Favre calls home.
There are actually 2 people named Brett Favre in our database – one in Mississippi and one in Tennessee. The most searches since June happened on June 26th (that must have been the Minnesota Vikings looking for his number before they signed him…see, everyone uses WhitePages!).
So take a look around, search for your name twin or other fascinating and interesting names you can find. Share them on your blog or badge (see the badge below) or at least in the comments!
Pages
is the most popular last name in the US. has been searched in the past month.
We’ve also released a WhitePages
most searched for people in the top 25 small towns in America. This data may be coming to your town next, are you local-famous? If you want us to run data for your town, please let us know.
For the official launch of the WhitePages Names product, we took a lighthearted look at some of the names behind the most “followed” celebrities on Twitter. For example, we found that Jimmy Fallon’s first name (James, a form of Jacob) means “heel grabber” and that while 50 Cent’s real first name, Curtis, can be a nickname for someone who is “courteous”, it is also Middle English for curt “short” and hose “leggings” or “short leggings”. We also found Al Gore’s full name to be quite intriguing – his first name means “noble, bright, and famous” and his last name means “a triangular piece of land”.
