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.