New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on February 15, 2023) follows:
The internet is huge and full of all kinds of tools, whether they are useful, educational, fun, or curious. Among the curious ones was the HowManyofMe.com website.
The platform allowed users to find out how many people in the United States share their full name (first, last, or both). However, it can’t be reached anymore.
In case you are one of the HowManyofMe.com users looking for potential alternatives, we will leave you some throughout this story.
Potential alternatives for HowManyofMe.com while servers are down or not working
The crash on the ‘HowManyofMe’ servers was surprising and without warning. Apparently, the website was simply no longer accessible.
Some people suspect that it is Laurin Bell’s ‘fault’, after mentioning the website on the Jeopardy show.
Laurin Bell on @Jeopardy mentioned http://HowManyOfMe.com. I tried checking the site, but it didn’t work.
Source
Apparently Lauren Bell just crashed the website http://howmanyofme.com @Jeopardy @KenJennings 😁😁😁😁
Source
Some also have tried various tricks like the Wayback machine to keep using the website. However, this method does not allow you to use the website to search for names (only revisit pages).
For those curious, the results that HowManyofMe returned while active looked like this:
Now, we will talk about the potential alternatives to HowManyofMe.com. While they offer similar base functionality, they could have some limitations or differences as well.
First, we have Forebears, a website that allows you to find out curious facts about the name you enter, as well as the number of people with it around the world (separating forename from surname).
A Forebears search will look like this:
Maniacs.info is another potential alternative to HowManyofMe. This website allows you to type a forename or surname, then it will return both the number of people in the United States with that name and curious facts.
Below you can see what a section of the search results looks like on Maniacs.info. The full results page offers much more data.
Another potential alternative is ‘Behind The Name‘, although this service has a different focus. Instead of showing the number of people who share a name, it offers the etymology and history of first names.
To top it off, the screenshot below partially shows how a ‘Behind The Name’ search looks like. Full results also return other data such as related names, and equivalents in multiple countries.
We will update this story once new developments arise related to HowManyofMe.com status or more potential alternatives.
Update 1 (February 16, 2023)
10:10 am (IST): It seems that it is not the first time that the website is down indefinitely for several days (or weeks). There are reports (1, 2) that point to a previous outage between November and December 2022.
Update 2 (February 17, 2023)
05:25 pm (IST): If HowManyofMe is still not working for you then you can check out Genealogy. However, it must be noted that it’s not a direct alternative to the same.
Featured Image: HowManyofMe
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