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Question:As a writer, I collect names. Given names are a lot easier to come up with than surnames, as there are multiple baby-name databases on the internet.

Does anyone know of a database of surnames? Or sites on the history of names?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: As a writer, I collect names. Given names are a lot easier to come up with than surnames, as there are multiple baby-name databases on the internet.

Does anyone know of a database of surnames? Or sites on the history of names?

Try:
http://www.houseofnames.com/
or:
http://www.searchforancestors.com/surnam...
then there is:
http://www.behindthename.com/name/
and:
http://www.surnameweb.org/
and then there is:
http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_su...
ranking the first 1,000 most common names, most popular girl's names and most popular boy's names.
Have fun!

http://www.surnameweb.org/
http://www.rootsweb.com/

Enjoy

How about.

Antracan
Aylesworth
Argaule
Boshart
Beauchamp
Crawbuck
Critchet

How about these?

Wilson
Gilbert
Mcdonald
McLachan
O'Leary
O'Donnel
McAllister
Daniels
Peterson
Anderson
Matthews
Robertson
Davison
Muir
Cockburn
Constantine
Burnett
Simpson
Roberts
Parker
Reynolds
Grant
Aitken
Williams
Wilkinson

I've been known to use a phone book to pick out a character's name. It's free, and it's easy.

It usually took a couple tries, since the name has to be different from other characters (easier for the reader to keep track) and sometimes I'd just alter the names to make them funny, weird, or fit the character better.

You can also fold out the phone book, and throw a dart, and accept the name as is. Easy, and you don't need to boot the computer to pull off this trick. Just don't aim at the cat...