Sadly, HowManyofMe.com seems to be yet another dead website. I guess dead links happen naturally to a genealogy blogger who stays around more than a decade like I have.
But wait! There are alternatives and an entertaining diversion for your surname family history research. In the United States, the Social Security Administration publishes the top ten names by year, available here.
Forebears and Surnames
An alternative is Forebears, a site that offers:
- a directory of sources for family history research that is geographically indexed
- a dictionary of surname meanings, including information on their geographic distribution
- a baby name generator
- a most popular name index
Forebears.io, an Alternative to How Many of Me
Started in 2012, this site creates a global roundup of 11 million surnames pulled from newspaper mentions, historical sources, genealogical records sites and more to map out what last names come from which particular regions of the world.
How Many of Me
You can find out how many people share your name simply by entering your first and last name at HowManyofMe.com. Then have fun searching for ancestors’ names. (My own favorite ancestor name is William Butt Munch – just one of him!) The data used on this site comes from the 2000 U.S. census.
My first name has more than a million hits, but my last name has only 3.029. Combine my first and last name and that brings that number down to only 10.
One of these ten women just moved to my very small town, which I thought was fun. Then I discovered we use the same labs and doctors. Yikes!
But How Many of Me is still a bit of fun.
Fun, eh? But now it’s time to get back to some serious genealogy research! Good luck in all your searches.
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