Behind The Name
does everything you want except the era thing. You can even register for an account and keep lists of names on the site itself.
I find that it's not especially good with listing eras if it's not a European name, though.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Onomastikon has no search function, but pretty good indexing. Also, I'd be very interested in links to other similar culture-indixed naming resources.
Oh... I just found out I don't know how to add links in this markup system. It's at: < http://tekeli.li/onomastikon/ >
Honor For All...
New account, so I can't post the link, but the name is: fake name generator .com (no spaces obviously)
Not much in the way of searching or eras, but I have used it for quite some time for characters, especially from other countries. It's pretty useful.
My other source is Behind The Name (mentioned above). Hope this helps.
edited 9th Dec '12 8:10:18 PM by MatthiasPendragon
Some people think I'm strange. I think it's sad that they can't see all the awesome stuff going on in my head right now.
I also use Baby Names World. They have an awesome advanced search feature (best of any name site I've come across) in addition to basic search, and if you run any search, you can further filter the results. The only downside from what it sounds like you want is that their popular names by era feature uses the SSA data, so it's just for the US. The other downside is that the site has a tendency to run auto-playing video ads, so you'll probably want to mute your computer.
I think the best name website by far, in terms for our needs, is Nameberry. Aside from the standard definition and name variants, each name tends to have some commentary (e.g. whether it's fashionable, geriatric-sounding, caricatured, etc) and/or history behind the name, along with a short list of famous people and pop culture references associated with that name.
On top of that, there are an assortment of lists, blogs and articles on a variety of name-related topics and a forum solely to discuss names.
20000 Names is pretty good in terms of scope. It even has some of the obscure countries and languages. However, it doesn't have eras.
Eras are very important if you're doing anything that's even vaguely historical.
In some places, in some times, you can deduce a lot from a character's name. One of the characters in my Ärth historical fantasy setting is named Johan, and he's a Norse pagan. Given the period, you can know that his parents where Christians, based on their choice of name, and from this you can conclude that Johan is an apostate. Hugely important!
I really have no use for naming resources that don't take eras into account.
I'm trying to compile some names to use for some characters. Only problem is the only websites that I've found that list names and meanings are usually have awful search functions or are otherwise incomplete. I was wondering if any of you could direct me to a good name list on the internet, perferably if it could include
- Being able to sort by country of origin
- Being able to search by name meaning
- From a variety of eras (not just 1763 England or just modern names)
- And having a relatively easy to use search system
I don't care if it's intended for expectant parents or what, if you've been able to find a good website, I'd really appreciate it.