Question 1

Where does the name data come from?

Accepted Answer

From publicly available birth-record and census datasets. The data covers names registered across multiple countries and is aggregated to show global frequency ranks. Coverage depth varies by country · large nations with good public records (US, UK, Sweden, Germany, India) are most comprehensive.

Question 2

Does it work for surnames too?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Toggle between first names and family names to compare rarity across both categories. The distributions are very different · surnames have a long tail of single-family names while first names cluster around a few dozen popular choices in each language. The toggle exposes both sides of the same nominal record.

Question 3

How is the rarity rating calculated?

Accepted Answer

Names are ranked by estimated global frequency. "Very common" covers the top ~1% of names by count. "Extremely rare" is below 1-in-100,000 of the relevant population. Several intermediate bands cover the long middle · common, uncommon, rare, very rare.

Question 4

Why does my name look more / less common than I expected?

Accepted Answer

Two common reasons: the lookup is global, so a name common in your region might be rare globally (e.g. many Scandinavian names) or vice versa. And spellings matter · "Catherine" / "Katherine" / "Kathryn" are tracked separately, so a popular name with many spelling variants can look rarer than its phonetic version actually is. Try the regional view and alternate spellings if the global rating surprises you.

Question 5

Does it work offline?

Accepted Answer

Yes. PlayMemorize is a Progressive Web App. The name dataset is bundled locally so lookups work without an internet connection.

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