lk101101/names

Name generator that can generate random first and last names, create visualizations of a name's popularity over time, retrieve name meanings, and more!

Try it out on Replit: https://replit.com/@lk101/Names#main.py

Note: only includes random name generator (choice 'r') and popularity stats without the visualization (choice 'p')

Overview

The US Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes annual lists of baby names used during that year. This program can:

1. process the data from the most recent SSA dataset (2020) and the dataset from specified year (choice 'p')
2. print number of babies named with specified name in specified year and current year (choice 'p')
3. display a line graph visualizing the change in popularity from specified year to current year (choice 'p')
4. return a random first and/or last name from a random year (choice 'r') with options to specify gender (m/f) and number of names to generate
5. output information about a name's origin and meaning scraped from NameBerry.com as well as its predicted nationality, age, and gender gathered from the Nationalize.io, Genderize.io, and Agify.io APIs (choice 'm')
6. save favorite names to CSV file and print all names from file (choice 's')

Currently, the only options for gender are male (m) and female (f). For all of the annual datasets (ranging all the way to 1880), download 'National data' on the SSA site: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html . I have included the CSV files for the years 2000 and 2020 in 'names_files' folder.

For full list of surnames from 2010 Census, download the Excel file on https://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/2010_surnames.html . I have included a small sample CSV file for the top 20 surnames but the complete file has 65k+ surnames.

Examples

Choice r: return random names

"Specify a gender (m/f) and/or number of names to generate (>1) and/or whether to include a random surname (s). Leave blank for a single random name"
Note: inputs must be in the order |gender | number | surname| even if not all parameters are included. See more examples in the code.

Input: f
Output: 2010: F Emma

Input: f s
Output: 2010: F Emma Smith

Input: s
Output: Smith

Choice m: output name meanings

"Enter a name and gender to return its origin and meaning: "

Input: emma f
Output:
The name Emma is a girl's name of German origin meaning "universal"... (full description scraped from NameBerry.com)

Predicted nationality:
Country: United Kingdom | Probability: 10%
Country: Sweden | Probability: 10%
...

Predicted gender:
Gender: female | Probability: 99%

Predicted age:
Age: 40

Choice p: return the popularity ranking of a name

"Enter as name gender (m/f) year"
Input: emma f 2010
Output: The girls' name Emma was used 15581 times in 2020 and 17351 times in 2010

Choice s: save favorite names to CSV file and print all names

"Enter a name in format 'name gender'py to save it or enter 'print' to return your favorite names so far"
Input (save name): emma f
Output: Saved!

Input (print names): print
Output: Emma, f

Note: This feature uses the CSV file 'Fav_Names.csv'

How to Download and Run Code

In your Terminal, navigate to your preferred directory. Next, type or copy and paste ' git clone https://github.com/lk101101/Names ' to clone this repo into your directory. Navigate to the new folder called Names. Create a Python environment and run 'pip install -r requirements.txt' to download the required packages. Enter ' python baby_names.py ' to run the code.

TO DO

• allow for more search criteria such as name length, initial, certain level of popularity, etc.
• provide option for user to provide beginning + end year for popularity visualization