How this site is made
Name Lineage is assembled from public records and open reference data. A build script joins them name by name and publishes a page only when there is enough to say. No text is written by hand or by AI; every sentence is a template filled in with the numbers.
Sources
| Source | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 and 2000 Census | Public domain | surname counts, ranks, ethnicity shares, 2000–2010 change |
| Office for National Statistics, Baby names in England and Wales | Open Government Licence v3.0 | first-name popularity by year, 1996–2025 |
| Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | origins, meanings, etymologies, pronunciation, variants, nicknames, other-language forms |
| Wikidata | CC0 | notable people with each name |
| CMU Pronouncing Dictionary | BSD | syllable counts |
| US Social Security Administration, Baby names | Public domain | US first-name popularity by year |
Text from Wiktionary is reused under CC BY-SA 4.0, and the origin and etymology passages on this site are available under the same licence. ONS figures contain public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Which names get a page
A surname gets a page if at least 1,000 people in the US carried it in 2010, or if Wiktionary records its origin and it is either counted by the Census or borne by a notable person, or if at least three notable people carry it (27,241 surnames). A first name gets a page if Wiktionary has an entry for it, at least 300 babies in England and Wales were given it since 1996, or at least five notable people carry it (7,521 names). Bare given names and surnames with nothing but a count are left out.
How things are worked out
How common: counts, ranks and the race and Hispanic-origin shares are the Census Bureau’s own figures for 2010; “1 in N” divides the 2010 US population (308,745,538) by the count. The change since 2000 compares with the Census 2000 surname file.
Origin and type: the origin language is taken from Wiktionary’s description of the surname; “occupational”, “patronymic”, “place” and “nickname” are read from the words its etymology uses.
Sound-alikes: surnames with the same Soundex or Metaphone code that also start with the same letter and are spelled similarly.
Meanings: the quoted glosses in a name’s etymology (“olive; olive branch”), grouped into themes such as light, love or strength.
Famous people: humans on Wikidata with the name as their family or given name and articles in at least eight Wikipedia languages, ordered by how many.
Limits
The US surname data stops at 2010; the Census Bureau has not released a surname file from the 2020 count. First-name popularity covers England and Wales only. Wiktionary and Wikidata are written by volunteers, so an origin or a famous person can be wrong; fixes made there arrive here at the next rebuild. Data built 2026-11-11.