The Name Maze Project Returns...Part 2 including Name Data

December 22, 2020

I have made a lot of Name mazes. And after awhile I got tired of only updating one page on the website. I expanded into new types of mazes and less repetitive maze making. In 2019 I made 1,499 name mazes. in 2020 I only made names when I got a request to make a name into a maze. Today I tell you about the updated names I added to Name maze section of the website. (If you are just interested in HOW to make a maze of your name, I have that covered.) Now the story of how I added new mazes.

Here were the stages I went through in Part 1 (to read the full blog click here):

Stage 1 - Names of my Close Friends and Family

Stage 2 - The Ten Most Popular Male and Female Names

Stage 3 - My LinkedIn Connections Names

Stage 4 - Close variations of Existing Names

Stage 5 - Top 100 Male/Female Names

Stage 6 - Top 200 Male/Female Names

Stage 7 - Top 300 Male /Female Names

Stage 8 - Regional names page - “The Land”

Stage 9 - Top European names

Stage 10 - Top Americas and Oceanic names

Stage 11 - Top African Names

Stage 11.1 - National Bubba Day

Stage 12 - Male names from Asia

Stage 13 - Female names from Asia

Stage 14 - Names from Movies

And now the new stuff:

Stage 15 - Name requests by readers

It was a long time between updates, but site visitors kept me busy throughout the year. Name mazes are always fun because I tend to get non-Western names since most of those are already covered on the site. New names added by request include Sadat, Farhan, Rehan, Protha and Fahim. And of course I always like to learn a new Z name like Zasia and Zarif. Overall I added 43 names from requests during this time frame.

Stage 16 - Dating Site name mining

I used a dating site, set the location to worldwide and picked the first 50 New names I did not have on the site. The worldwide search really gave me some diverse names. Eishah, Fyokla, Jamuna, Kaisa, Kia, Lupine, Miu, Neta, Rea, Remi, Shalina, Tiana, Yu, Yuko and Zsu all were added this way. I also captured some new calendar names with Summer, Autumn and May (June, August and April were already on the site). And of course if you add Dagny you need to add Ayn (it’s a rule). Overall with some spelling variations this added 58 new names to the site.

Stage 17 - Popular Names from Mexico

I want to continue to add more international names and Mexico seemed like a logical choice. Many names are spelling variations on existing names with an O or A added or an E becoming IO (Leonard became Leonardo, Marc became Marco, Maurice became Mauricio, and Justin became Justina for example) . Also there were a large number of Hispanic names already on the site from the Top 300 males/female US names. I was surprised I was missing Juana, Marco, Margarita and Arturo. This added 38 new names.

Stage 18 - Popular Names from India

I have been watching a lot of Bollywood movies and I notice so many new names. So I researched Indian names and found a list broken into 2 categories, Hindu, and Muslim. This gave me a nice long list of names to add ! My favorite section was when I added Tanisha, Manisha, Anisha, Nisha, and Isha. I just kept dropping one letter ! Anyway, I had gone 5 steps without adding any V names, but that was changed during this step with 3 new ones, Vinod, Vikash and Vijay ! I also added Zaid and Zuhaib to give the Z’s some love. Overall this added 59 new names to the website !

Stage 19 - Names I was surprised I missed

I ran the query for additional names that are not yet on the website for the next 100 male/female names and selected 12 names each that I was surprised have never made it onto the site. Surprised because I know people with the names or just because I thought they were more popular and already on there. Usually I don’t list every name I added in a section, but this time is an exception. I grouped them into these categories: Names of people I know, Evan, Stuart, Rudy, Lindsay, Lindsey, Joanna, Monique, Opal, and Sheryl. Popular names I missed: Blake, Devin, Damon, Dominic, Edmund, Grant, Homer, Neal, Rex, Brandi, Harriet, Lynda, Maggie, Natasha, and Whitney. AND THEN I said how about a few more and I added 16 more…

Name Maze Data

And now, I am going to go through some of the data from the names on the site. Maybe you find it interesting like I do. Maybe you like playing in spreadsheets like I do. For fun, see if you can guess the answers before I give them to you !

Most (and Least) Popular Starting Letter

The Letter that starts the most names on my site is A with 182, or over 10% of the total. This is followed by M,S,J,C,L, and R. These 7 letters represent over 50% of the starting letters (52.6%). None of these surprised me. The least popular letters did, however, led or not led? by the letter U with 2 and Q with 3. I have 6 X names, 14 O’s and 22 Z’s. I think I am going to work on finding more names with these letters.

Most (Least) Popular Ending Letter

Not too much surprise here with A leading the charge with 403. Both N and E are solid with 225 and 223. Add in Y with 147 and the first 4 letters represent 58.5% of all last letters. The worst performing ending letters on the site are Q at 3, X and W at 4, and J at 5.

Most Common Length of Names

The most common name length on the site is 5 from 467 Names, then 6 and 4. 11 is the longest which has been used 3 times, most commonly with Christopher. And the shortest name length is 2 which has been used 20 times. I did go to school with a guy named R but he didn’t make the cut.

Most Popular First 2 Letters

Of the 676 possible first two letter combinations to start a name, I have 197 of them on the site. These range from AA 3 times to ZY once. Any idea what the most common (by far) 2 letter combination is appearing 89 times ? MA. Next with 46 occurrences is AN, then AL (41) SA (40) and JA (39).

Double Letters used to start a name besides AA (Aaron, Aasha, Aarav), include LL (Lloyd) and, well that’s it. Only 4 names start with double letters.

Most Popular Second Letter

This was a blowout that I will have to make a bar bet out of somehow, A is used 457 times as a second letter in the name on my site, about 27% of the time. This is followed by E 228, 211 I , 191 O and 106 U. That’s an easy pattern to see. Vowels make up 70% of all second letters (But only 18% of first letters). All letters were represented except one……..X.

So what is next for name mazes ? What is Stage 20 ? Here are the options I am considering:

1. The next 100 names for men/women

I need to research the next 200 overall names, 100 from each gender (both thru #400). Hopefully a nice number of them are covered already on the site.

2. MORE Top international names

Keep with International by doing the most popular names in the world.

3. The uncommon letters

Search out names that start with uncommon letters like U, Q, X, Y, and Z

4. Maze the names of everyone I meet in a day

5. Pick a random sports roster and maze all names

Have an idea you’d like to see ? Let me know in the comments.

The Name Maze Project

October 31, 2019

Every section of the Doyoumaze website has a story. Today I tell you about the Name maze section of the website. (If you are just interested in HOW to make a maze of your name, I have that covered.) I thought people would enjoy seeing their name in maze form - a kind of personalized maze. If you want to do this on your own click on the link above, otherwise we continue on… Maybe it was my time in corporate America but I think these mazes would look good on a cubicle wall. And they are fun to make. I also thought they would make a nice gift. Print out a friends name and write a note thanking them for being amazing (or maybe a-maze-ing). Now the story of how I went about actually making the name mazes. Here were the stages I went through:

Stage 1 - Names of my Close Friends and Family

Initially I started out as anyone would making my close friends and family members names. That got me to 6 mazes….ok maybe a few more,. Let’s say about 25 mazes. I added these to the website and felt pretty good. Now if they visited my website I had the important people done.

Stage 2 - The Ten Most Popular Male and Female Names

I did a quick search for the 10 most popular names for Men and Women. This is where I found out the Top 10 Men’s names in the United States represent 23% of all Men’s names ( James, John, Robert, Michael, William, David, Richard, Charles, Joseph, and Thomas) and for Women the Top 10 represent 10.7% of all Women’s names (Mary, Patricia, Linda, Barbara, Elizabeth, Jennifer, Maria, Susan, Margaret, Dorothy). I thought it was interesting that the Men’s name database has 1200 different names while the Women’s name database has 4,275 names !!! I later realized this was partly because men have more standard name spellings than women (like Katherine & Catherine & Katharine & Kathryn).

At this point I could display all maze name images directly on the website (and not the name listings you see today).

Stage 3 - My LinkedIn Connections Names

I have approximately 460 connections on LinkedIn. I thought it would be nice to make a maze for each connection. The best part about this project was that I got to think about each person as I made their maze. The people I have lost touch with. My old co-workers from previous jobs. I have to admit, this was a very rewarding project simply because of this process. This project added 302 more unique names to the maze name section. I would like to thank the following names for being popular among my connections:

Michael and Michelle - 8 connections each

Brian, Rachel and Rick - 6 connections each

David, Greg, Jason, Jennifer, Mary and Richard - 5 connections each

Now, if you ask me to connect on LinkedIn you’ll have a much better chance if you have a (short) common name. Website wise this is where I had to take down the pictures of each maze name and use the name listing version you see today. Because once you have so many names, if you want the page to load quickly lots of images is not helping anyone.

Stage 4 - Close variations of Existing Names

If I make Richard, it is easy to make Ricardo. Debbie became Deb. Douglas became Doug. Frank became Fran. etc. Close variations added about 100 more name mazes to the portfolio.

Stage 5 - Top 100 Male/Female Names

I decided that with so many names done I wanted to see how many of the top 100 Men’s/Women’s names I had already mazed. The answer was 134. Since there were only 66 more names (out of the 200 names) that needed to be made I went ahead and finished all of them.

Stage 6 - Top 200 Male/Female Names

Well, I might as well keep going right……I added 132 more names (out of the 200) when this was complete. As I finished this up I found these statistics about how many US names I had covered with the project:

The top 200 Male names represent 72.5% of men’s names.

The top 200 Female names represent 58.2% of women’s names.

Plus I have 262 names not in the top 200 from the previous Stages 1-4. So I think I’m pretty well covered as a % of total US names. The final tally of name mazes ended up being 662…and growing. If you have a name I have not done yet, you can always request it here.

UPDATE:

Stage 7 - Top 300 Male /Female Names

I researched the next 200 overall names (thru #300) and I already had 52 of them on the site. That leaves 148 to make if I take this on, names like Agnes and Cecil. I completed this and along the way added in a few other similar names…+164 names…new total 826 !!!

Stage 8 - Regional names page - “The Land”

I decided to create a Cleveland names page. This added 57 additional names to the project, including some unique ones that everyone knows like LeBron, Kyrie, Zydrunas, Halle, Stipe, Urban, and Dolph. This is the first time I used colors other than black and white for these special edition name mazes. New total 883.

Stage 9 - Top European names

I went with Europe since they have names most closely related to our own but with nice variety. I used the top 10 lists I found online for Europe by country for both men and women. Not every name was done but this did add 161 new names and I broke the 1,000 barrier. You can thank Turkey for Zeynep and Slovenia for Zala. New total 1,044.

Stage 10 - Top Americas and Oceanic names

Kept with the International theme but felt like I needed to break it into parts. Again, like Europe I did not do every name in each top 10, just the most recognizable and any that appeared in multiple countries. I was very happy to add my first X name thanks to Mexico, Ximena. Haiti brought us Widelene and Peru gave us Milagros. I added 94 with this project. New total 1,138.

Stage 11 - Top African Names

I learned that South Africa has a thing for names like Blessing, Prince, Princess, and Faith. Also was able to add 4 “Y” names to the 6 I already had and another Z name. Overall Africa brought an additional 74 names. New total 1,212.

Stage 11.1 - National Bubba Day

National Bubba Day June 2nd meant an addition to the list, +1. New Total 1,213.

Stage 12 - Male names from Asia

Asia has such a wide variety of names I had to split it by gender. A mix of traditionally Muslim, Jewish and Asian names made this section varied as there was very little overlap between countries. There is also less overlap with traditional Christian names already on the site. We can thank China for short names like An, De and Yi. Our new first name alphabetically Aarav comes from India. Shout out to Pakistan for Zahid. And more “Y” Names, +6 from 10 before. Overall I added 126 additional names . New total 1.339.

Stage 13 - Female names from Asia

The second half of Asia added 108 new names. This included 2 Q’s, 5 X’s, 8 Y’s and 4 Z’s. I also added 13 names with dashes in them. Most of these names are ones I was unfamiliar with and they are all top ten in Asian countries….can’t imagine what an uncommon name is !!!! New total 1,447.

Stage 14 - Names from Movies

In an experiment to find more names to add to the website I decided to use the character names from movies I was watching until I generated at least 50 new names. I wondered how many movies I would need to watch before I hit 50. The answer was 24 movies !! Here are the movies I watched and the names that came from them:

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). The Western starring John Wayne and Dean Martin brought us the names Bud, and Curley. And yes, at some point Curley was a given name, not a nickname.

Big Jake (1971). Another John Wayne western. More nicknames that were once given names - Pop and Buck.

The Gunfighter (1950). Gregory Peck Western about a gunfighter who isn’t looking for trouble, but always seems to find it. Names: Hunt and August.

The Westerner (1940). Western starring Gary Cooper that deals with homesteaders in the early days of the West. Names: Cole, Hod and Shad.

Lonely Are The Brave (1962). Kirk Douglas and Walter Matthau western. Names: Morey and Hinton.

High Sierra (1941). Humphrey Bogart is a gangster just out of prison doing what he knows best. Names: Red and Doc.

The Defiant Ones (1958). Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are escaped convicts on the run. Name - Angus.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Great drama film about an alcoholic marriage. 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. New names were Kirsten, Ellis, Rad and Dottie.

Night of The Iguana (1964). Richard Burton and Ava Gardner star in this John Huston drama that brought us the name Hank.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They (1969). Jane Fonda stars in this drama about a dance marathon contest during the Depression. Names: Rollo and Shirl.

A Woman is a Woman (1961). Jean Luc-Godard comedy starring Anna Karina. Name: Emile

Bloody Sunday (2002). Historical drama about the Irish protest that resulted in a massacre by British troops. Names: Eamonn, Bernadette and Gerry.

Lovers of The Arctic Circle (1998). Finnish movie about a mystery and a romance. Names: Alvaro and Aki.

Tyrannosaur (2011). UK film about a violent man searching for redemption. Name: Gurav.

Dark Places (2015). Charlize Theron stars in this drama/mystery film that generated a surprising 7 names: LIbby, Lyle, Diondra, Trey, Debby, Magda and Runner. I also added Dion from Diondra.

Reign of the Supermen (2019). Some animated DC Comics Superman. This was an easy way to get the names Lex, Clark and Dabney.

The Commitments (1991). Alan Parker movie about starting a band in Dublin, Ireland. Names: Imelda and Mickah.

Three Identical Strangers (2018). Documentary about identical triplets that were split up at birth unbeknownst to them. Names: Hedy, Elliot, Eddy, and Mort.

O Lucky Man ! (1973). Malcolm McDowell is a naive salesmen. Names: Mick and Monty.

Secondhand Lions (2003). Michael Caine, Robert Duvall and Haley Joel Osmant star in this drama/comedy about a boy spending the Summer with his 2 wierd uncles. Names: Garth and Hub.

Missing (1982). Outstanding political drama starring Jack Lemmon. 0 names.

Suddenly Last Summer (1959). Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn star in this drama/mystery. 0 names.

Seconds (1966). John Frankenheimer Sci-Fi flic starring Rock Hudson. Great premise, nice movie, 0 names.

Adam’s Rib (1949). Comedy Romance starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. This is the movie that got me to over 50 new names !! Names: Kip, Beryl and Olympia.

So what is next for name mazes ? What is Stage 15 ? Here are the options I am considering:

1. The next 100 names for men/women

I need to research the next 200 overall names, 100 from each gender (both thru #400). Hopefully a nice number of them are covered already on the site.

2. MORE Top international names

Keep with International by doing the most popular names in the world.

3. More regional names like the Cleveland section

4. The uncommon letters

Search out names that start with uncommon letters like U, Q, X, Y, and Z

5. Maze the names of everyone I meet in a day

6. Pick a random sports roster and maze all names

Wondering what happened ? Well here’s my next name maze project update !

Have an idea you’d like to see ? Let me know in the comments.