User talk:CalSmith96

This is the user talk page for CalSmith96 (talk) 13:14, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Assignment #1
For me one of the handiest and more interesting websites is Behind The Name. The site is dedicated to the etymology of names and lets you find out the meaning and origin of almost any name in existence, as well as showing the equivalent names in other languages and common diminutives. They also offer alternate spellings and how the name is written in other scripts, such as Arabic. I find it extremely interesting to learn the history of certain names and how they've evolved over the centuries into their current forms - especially my own name and the names of my friends and family members. The site goes on to show the countries where the name in question is most popular and how much the name's popularity has dropped or increased over recent years in each country. Though the site's main focus is on first and middle names they also have a section based on surnames that tell you the source of the name (e.g. Occupation, location, etc) on top of its language of origin. Users are allowed to submit any names not already within the database so it's possible to find out the etymology of the more unusual names out there - providing they've been previously submitted.

On top of all this interesting trivia the site also has a random name generator feature which is useful for me because I'm a casual writer who struggles with naming characters, and often spend far too long mulling over names through Google. This generator is especially useful when looking for non-English language names because the site allows you to select which country/area's names you want to randomly generate; and also whether you want masculine, feminine or even ambiguous names. I used this feature a lot for stories in English class in high school and it saved me lots of time that would otherwise have been wasted on finding names for characters I wouldn't even write about again.

Though it's not as easy to get lost in and waste time on as other sites such as TV Tropes I still enjoy browsing the site every now and then when curious about the sources of common (and not so common) names.

CalSmith96 (talk) 16:24, 9 February 2016 (UTC)