I was in the midst of a computer science degree in the mid-1990s and eager to create an experiment on what was then the new Internet. Names immediately came to mind. I’d always been interested in given names—there are so many of them, each having a hidden meaning, and most having a history that can go back millennia—I thought at least a few other people would be as well.

Unlike today, in the mid-1990s when you created a website, it was generally not a commercial venture. My experiment was no exception. I planned to collect a few names and their meanings, display them on the Internet, and probably learn more about both names and website design. That was it.

Ten years and thousands of hours later, that experiment has become www.behindthename.com.

I started with core English names. I would go to my school’s reference library and fill notebooks with names and definitions; then I’d return home and type them in. Before long I was completely obsessed. I began adding names from other cultures and languages and using links to connect related names. Then I added gender information and a search function.

Today Behind the Name—originally ungainly titled the Etymology of First Names—has a database of over 14,000 given names from almost 100 different cultures. In addition to name definitions and histories, there is information about usage, related names, name popularity, famous bearers of names, name days, and pronunciations, as well as spellings in the original scripts, be they Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, or Arabic. Three or four times a year I add a batch of new names to the site, taking suggestions from visitors and doing research to find out what is missing.

Site creator Mike Campbell admits most people come to BehindtheName.com either to search for baby names or just for fun, but choose the right options and next thing you know, you’ll be pulling up clues to family history questions or even talking to the site’s seemingly resident experts. Try a few of the following options at www.behindthename.com:

Search a Name
Type in a given name and search for its meaning or its popularity throughout history. Meaning may point you to a name’s country of origin as well as to similar or derivative names.

Browse Names
Can’t quite figure out what’s written on a census document? If you can discern a first letter for the name, you can use the Browse Names feature to thumb through names from all over the world that begin with the same letter.

Namesakes
Looking at namesakes will either provide you with cultural clues or some great trivia. The name Lou, for example, has six listed namesakes—five sports stars and a first lady.

Glossary
Find a list of Czech or Slovak names, a definition of Low German, a description of how nicknames are formed, or the meaning of the word “dialect.” Hundreds of categories in the glossary offer answers related to topics in history, etymology, languages, and terms that visitors may stumble upon while browsing the site.

Name Days
Trying to determine an ancestor’s birthday? While it’s a long shot, there’s a chance that a name was bestowed courtesy of a name day. A number of countries have name days (particularly Eastern European countries and France). Search for a name to determine if there is a name day associated with it, view a list of all name days, or see a list of name days sorted by country. Even if it doesn’t help with family history research, it’s guaranteed to be great fun.

Translator
Translate a name into other languages. You input the name and select the languages you want it translated into. You can also request translations into a name’s pet form, its opposite gender equivalent, or a number of other options.

Message Boards
If you can’t find your answer on the site, someone’s bound to be out there willing to answer your question. “Members of the community,” says Mike Campbell, “are experts on the subject, knowing much more about onomastics [the study of names] than I do. Some of them hang out on the site’s message boards helping people find the origins of obscure names, while others post additional information to the name definitions that I have written. A few of them have published books about names.”