About
Every name has a story. Where it came from, what it meant to the people who first used it, who carried it into history, what it quietly says about the person wearing it now. Most of us never find out our own.
yourname.thankful.day is that story, for nearly two thousand first names, covered one name at a time.
What's in a name
Each name gets its meaning and the language it grew out of, when it first appears in the record, the people who have carried it, the variations it has picked up along the way, and the odd detail that makes it stick. Not a dictionary line — the whole small history.
The videos
The same stories run as a short video a day on Instagram, at @yourname.thankful.day. More platforms are coming.
Missing a name? Tell us
If a name isn't here, or your family spells it differently, say so and it gets added. Corrections are just as welcome — if something on this site is wrong, yourname would rather know than not.
Suggestions about the site itself are read too. If something is hard to find, hard to read, or simply annoying, that is worth an email.
How it pays for itself
Once you know what a name means, it is rather nice to put it on something — a mug, a shirt, a keychain. Those links are affiliate links, which is what funds the research. It costs you nothing extra, and it is set out plainly on the affiliate disclosure page.
What the research says about a name is never influenced by what can be sold alongside it.