The latest articles on DEV Community by Peek a Name (@peekaname). https://dev.to/peekaname https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3916641%2Fdd805c10-cda4-440b-9dae-fd8cb8fedbca.png https://dev.to/peekaname en Peek a Name Wed, 06 May 2026 20:04:17 +0000 https://dev.to/peekaname/i-built-a-free-baby-name-database-with-145-years-of-us-data-peek-a-name-35k4 https://dev.to/peekaname/i-built-a-free-baby-name-database-with-145-years-of-us-data-peek-a-name-35k4 <p>After spending way too many hours scrolling baby-name lists when my wife and I were name-hunting, I built <a href="https://peekaname.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peek a Name</a> — a free, no-signup baby name database with <strong>145 years of US Social Security Administration data (1880–2024)</strong>.</p> <h2> What you get </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>117,146 unique names</strong> with full popularity history</li> <li> <strong>372 million</strong> birth records — every baby named in the US since 1880</li> <li>Data for <strong>all 50 states + territories</strong> (54 regions total)</li> <li>100% free, no signup, no paywall</li> </ul> <h2> Some pages that might be fun to explore </h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://peekaname.com/year/2024" rel="noopener noreferrer">Most popular names of 2024</a></li> <li> <a href="https://peekaname.com/decade/1990" rel="noopener noreferrer">Top 1990s names</a> vs. <a href="https://peekaname.com/decade/2020" rel="noopener noreferrer">top 2020s names</a> </li> <li><a href="https://peekaname.com/trends" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trending / rising / falling names</a></li> <li>Search any name, e.g. <a href="https://peekaname.com/olivia" rel="noopener noreferrer">Olivia</a>, <a href="https://peekaname.com/liam" rel="noopener noreferrer">Liam</a>, <a href="https://peekaname.com/theodore" rel="noopener noreferrer">Theodore</a> </li> </ul> <h2> Free tools </h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/generator" rel="noopener noreferrer">Random name generator</a></li> <li><a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/siblings" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sibling name finder</a></li> <li> <a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/age-guesser" rel="noopener noreferrer">Age guesser</a> — guess someone's age from their name</li> <li><a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/compatibility" rel="noopener noreferrer">Name compatibility</a></li> <li> <a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/bracket" rel="noopener noreferrer">Name bracket</a> — tournament-style decision tool</li> <li> <a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/era-matcher" rel="noopener noreferrer">Era matcher</a> — find names from a specific decade</li> </ul> <h2> Stack </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>Astro 5</strong> with <code>@astrojs/node</code> middleware mode for SSR</li> <li> <strong>Hono</strong> API in the same Node process</li> <li> <strong>Drizzle ORM</strong> + <strong>better-sqlite3</strong> — the entire dataset is a 810 MB local SQLite file (WAL mode), no external database</li> <li><strong>Tailwind CSS 4</strong></li> <li>Single Docker container (300 MB memory limit) on a $6 VPS, fronted by Cloudflare</li> </ul> <p>8.7M-row SQLite queries return in &lt;10 ms — way faster than I expected. Drizzle's type-safety + SQLite's locality made this trivial to build solo in a few weekends.</p> <p>A small public dataset companion repo is at <a href="https://github.com/yusufcetin82/peekaname-public" rel="noopener noreferrer">github.com/yusufcetin82/peekaname-public</a> — top-100 names of 2024 as JSON, more samples coming.</p> <p>Would love any feedback, especially on the <a href="https://peekaname.com/tools/predictor" rel="noopener noreferrer">trend predictor</a> (it's a simple time-series fit, ideas for better algorithms welcome).</p> <p>— <a href="https://peekaname.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">peekaname.com</a></p> showdev ai webdev vibecoding