Parents.com
A super website for all things related to baby names. You can search by name and learn the meaning of that name. Or, you can browse by letter of the first name, by sex, or by origin. You can even choose a name by the baby's most predominant traits. In addition, there is a great directory of the most popular names by year dating back to 1880 up to 2005.
BabyCenter.com
Another nice resource for choosing your baby's name. Includes a utility for choosing a name by origin, sex, even the beginning letter and the number of syllables. You can also look up the meaning of a name and create a poll to ask your friends and relatives for their input. Theres also an article for tips on choosing your new baby's name and a listing of the most popular names for 2006.
BabyNames.com
A directory of names, browsable by first letter and a handy search utility that includes the meaning of the name. Not as functional as the first two but still helpful.
BabyNamesWorld.com
An easy to use website that offers a directory of names by first letter and one of the most robust advanced search mechanisms we've seen. The advanced search provides for the ability to search by sex, first letters, last letters, or names containing certain letters, number of syllables, number of characters, names by country (US, England, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand), most popular names by year, and a selectable geographic origin. Wow!
Social Security Administration
Here's a website from a US Federal Agency responsible for assigning social security numbers and their benefits. Strangely enough, they keep tabs on the most popular names listing the top-10 boys and girls names for the last year. The list is updated monthly or bi-monthly. There's also a search utility for the most popular names by year dating back to 1880.
ThinkBabyNames.com
ThinkBabyNames.com is similar to other baby naming websites in that it provides an alphabetical directory and a simple search mechanism for names and their meanings. You can search by sex, and the starting and ending letters, the meaning, and the description. In addition, you can find the top-1000 names in the US and the top-100 names for countries like Canada, Ireland, Sweden, England, Wales, Scotland, and Australia. There's even a random baby naming utility for those that are struggling with choosing a name.
BabyNameWizard.com
The Baby NameVoyager tool gives you a graphical interpretation of names, their popularity, and deviations of those names. This site requires Java. Just type a name or part of a name next to the flashing box and NameVoyager will show you data immediately.
