Just today, we had a lively discussion on a website about the importance of unique names in the age of the Internet, as well as the impact of those names on privacy.
That’s obviously an interesting topic, and I could bore you to death for hours with how I see the future having much less privacy than we have now - but really, the best thing from the whole discussion where two nice little web sites that make just playing around with names a lot of fun.
One is How Many of Me?, a web site that estimates how many people with the identical name exist in the United States. It’s by no means accurate, but even reading their own take on accuracy is a lot of fun.
And if you ever thought about names, what names there are that start with certain letters, how common they have been over time, and lots of other things, you’ll definitely want to check out the iVillage Baby Name Wizard. An interactive web application that shows popularity of names over time. I’ll have to rename my cats now! 