22:31:19 (GMT) Mon 4 Feb 2002


Personal Name Generator
Frequently Asked Questions
File last updated 4 February 2002

Copyright 2002 by Thane Plambeck
All rights reserved

---

What is this thing?
It's a program that generates random names of people using 1990 US Census data.

A man's name and a woman's name are chosen with equal probability. The first and last names are chosen independently, and in proportion to their observed rates in the US population. Although such an approach can yield seemingly unlikely, culture-clashing names such as "Mario Suzuki," usually there's someone out there on the web, no matter what name is chosen.

Tens of millions of different names are possible.

Clicking on the "website" link takes you to the person Google thinks you are looking for. This turns out to be a remarkably effective way to ensnare yourself in

1) genealogy archives, or
2) self-published, awful poetry.

For example, here is the first stanza of R. S. Pearson's We Are Not Lost In Space (2001).

Cloudless Blue 

like the sunshine's heat expand
make me bold
not get small like the ice when cold

a heavy daze attracted to face
when shifted up in consciousness
an affluent luxuriation in an atmosphere of music

I feel getting back to my roots
of life's finest things
which are inner smiles in us
forming the saturation of kisses

Any resemblance to actual people is purely coincidental.

Click here to try it out now.