List of names

October 2, 2007 9:44 AM

Need a list of the top 1000 male and female names, with variants and misspellings.

I'm trying to find a list of the 1000 most common male and female names, along with nicknames and spelling variants. This is for a website that needs to know, for instance, John and Jon are the same name with different spellings. I've been able to find many lists of names, but the variants and spelling variations seems to be non-existent.

posted by MattS to writing & language (7 comments total)

The Social Security Administration website lists the 1,000 most commonly registered names in the USA going back several decades. If you do a search on a particular name, it will show the variants (although the search isn't perfect).
posted by jamaro at 9:56 AM on October 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Does not seem to show variants, but a great tool non the less.

This site tells you name variants.

Top 1000 for 2006 ok? (you could go older if you want) - Under 'Popular Names by Birth Year' drop 'Popularity?' to 1000 and your set.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 10:00 AM on October 2, 2007

Though maybe not exactly what you're looking for, the Baby Name Wizard gives you a ranking by tracking the names of babies born in the US, as reported by the Social Security Administration, so you can see a given name's popularity for a specific year. Pretty fun trends can be seen.
posted by subajestad at 10:19 AM on October 2, 2007

You might want to consider the idea that names like John and Jon are not the same name, they are different names with similar spellings. I could forsee names from different languages with different "meanings" being spelled similarly in english, but that doesn't make them the same.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:56 AM on October 2, 2007

It seems to be a spiritual/philosophical thing with these folks, so be aware that they'd like you to join their society, but they do have amazing lists of names.
posted by Lynsey at 10:59 AM on October 2, 2007

Not to be discouraging, but this will be tough. The Wikipedia entry on "John" points out all of the many, many different language and diminutive version of a common name like "John."
posted by desuetude at 11:06 AM on October 2, 2007

You might want to consider the idea that names like John and Jon are not the same name, they are different names with similar spellings.

Agreed (says Kate, not Katie or Katherine).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:54 PM on October 2, 2007 [1 favorite]