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?
• On the message board, what does NT mean?
• Why do you not have more surnames from culture [---]?
• Why is language [---] not listed on your languages page?
• Can I copy the definition of my name to use in my homework report?
• 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:

• French pronunciation
• Italian pronunciation
• Spanish pronunciation
• Gaelic pronunciation
• Welsh pronunciation
• Czech pronunciation
• Polish 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 child with the same name as his/her parent. The following conditions apply:

1. The Junior must be the child of the parent, not a grandson or granddaughter.
2. The names must be exactly the same, including the middle name.
3. The parent 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.

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.

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."
   2001. http://surnames.behindthename.com/
   (5 May, 2001).

(where 5 May, 2001 is the date you accessed the site)

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