Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about names:

• Where can I research my family's history?
• How is this name pronounced?
• What does my first name mean?
• How do I legally change my name?
• When is it appropriate to use Junior versus 'II'?

Questions about this website:

• Why have you not responded to my email?
• Why is my surname not listed?
• Do I need to login?
• I registered for a user account, why was the email not sent to me?
• Why are my username and password not working?
• Can you make those annoying ads go away?
• On the message boards, what does NT, RTFM, etc mean?
• Why do you not have more surnames from this culture?
• Why is this language not listed on your languages page?
• Can I copy the definition of my name to use in my homework report?
• How do I list your site in my references?
• Can I copy the contents of your website and put them on my website?

Here are some websites that offer genealogy research.

• Ancestry.com Subscription required for some services.
• Genealogy Home Page Links to resources.

Here are some web guides you can use if you know what language the name is from:

• Czech pronunciation
• Danish pronunciation
• Finnish pronunciation
• French pronunciation
• Gaelic pronunciation
• German pronunciation
• Italian pronunciation
• Polish pronunciation
• Spanish pronunciation
• Swedish pronunciation
• Welsh pronunciation
• Pronunciation of eastern Asian Names

Please go to www.behindthename.com to get the meaning of your first name.

Here are some websites that offer advice on changing your name.

• Australia
• Canada - Alberta
• Canada - Ontario
• Canada - Nova Scotia
• New Zealand
• United Kingdom
• United States
• United States

Junior is used to distinguish a son with the same name as his father. The following conditions apply:

1. The Junior must be a son of the father, not a grandson.
2. The names must be exactly the same, including the middle name.
3. The father must still be living.

'II' is used whenever any close relative, including for example a grandfather or a great-uncle, shares the same name as the child.

Due to volume and time constraints I cannot answer every piece of email I get. However I promise that every email I receive gets read.

Nobody has submitted it yet. If you know what it means you can submit it from the submit-a-name page. If you are trying to find out the meaning you can try asking on the message board.

You can access all of the data on this site without logging in. However, there are some interactive features that require a login identity, including:

• leaving comments about names
• creating and responding to polls (on www.behindthename.com)
• maintaining personal name lists (on www.behindthename.com)
• sending and receiving private messages
• posting messages on the message boards (depending on your domain - some domains allow anonymous postings)

In addition, a login identity gives you the option to fill out your profile and upload a picture, and lets you track your contributions to the site. You can also turn off the banner advertisements that appear at the top of the page.

You can register for a login identity at the registration page.

Please contact me using the email address you used to register and I will activate your account. There are many possible reasons the original email did not reach you, including a typo when you entered your email address, and emailing filtering software.

1. Make sure you type your password exactly as you originally typed it. It is case-sensitive.
2. Make sure you have cookies enabled in your web browser.

The banner advertisements help pay for this free site. However, if you wish to turn the ads off, you can create a login identity, edit your profile, and then check the "hide ads" checkbox. This will hide them as long as you are logged in.

NT stands for No Text. It means that the message is entirely within the subject line, and there is no point in reading the body of the message.

FN, LN and NN stand for first name, last name and nickname.

For other common abbreviations see this Abbreviation Guide.

Because there have been no names submitted from that culture. I do not purposefully exclude names from any background!

That page only lists languages which are referred to by the name lists. If a language is not there it probably means there are no names from that language included on this website.

That is not a problem as long as it is only a few names. You do not need to ask permission for this.

If your teacher requires you to cite your sources you should use this:

Campbell, Michael D. "Behind the Name: the
   Etymology and History of Surnames."
   2008. http://surnames.behindthename.com/
   (26 May, 2008).

(where 26 May, 2008 is the date you accessed the site)

No, sorry, that is not allowed. Please place a link to my site instead.