Name data

On this page, we collect information about available personal names data from around the world that can be used for research purposes. 

If you would like to add further references to name data, please send an email.

An overview presentation by our member Gerrit Bloothooft, Utrecht University, Netherlands, can be found here.

 

Personal names data for research purposes is available in the following countries at the links below:

Belgium (Flanders/Wallonia)

• Belgian name data from the national bureau of statistics

England and Wales

• English name data from the national bureau of statistics

France

• French name data from the national bureau of statistics

Germany

German names are not available from official sources for data protection reasons. 
Private researcher Knud Bielefeld and the Society for the German Language (GfdS) collect the most popular first names and other information on the following websites:

• German first names by Knud Bielefeld
• German first names by the GfdS

Netherlands

• Dutch data on contemporary given names: Nederlandse Voornamenbank
• Dutch data on contemporary surnames: Nederlandse Familiennamenbank
• Dutch data on historical personal names: WieWas Wie
• Dutch data on historical personal name variants: NAMES corpus

Norway

• Norwegian name data from the national bureau of statistics

Scotland

• Scottish name data from the national bureau of statistics

South-Australia

• Australian name data from the national bureau of statistics

Switzerland

• Statistics on first names and surnames in Switzerland (until 2018)
• Surname directory for Switzerland with information on the local occurrence of surnames

USA

• American data on personal names from the United States government