Our First Million

Our Why Name It That counter of visits clicked over the one million mark at the end of June!  That is an achievement for this little blog.  That came after over a decade and over 500 posts, so sticking to it gets some credit.

My first post was about the origin of this blog. It began as a student project by my then-young son and was something I picked up and converted into a blog a few years later. The idea was to answer the question posed in Romeo and Juliet - "What's in a name?"

It turns out there's a lot in a name, and so I look at why something has the name it does. That led us to find origins for curious names of bands, product names, people names, place names, titles, sports teams and really the origins of any words and phrases that catch my interest.

Early posts were about the name origins of rock bands (a category that remains the most popular posts here). I was working off an alphabetical list of topics at first, so I posted about 38 Special, ABBA, AC/DC and others.

I also started posting about names in sports, including my favorite team, the New York Yankees, and some eponyms found in the world of figure skating.

I started on some place names beginning with Alaska and Alabama but then moving not only through the United States but out into the wider world.

Words and phrases are a big part of the site. The first curiosity was that # symbol known by several names including as the pound sign.

If you're one of our regular visitors, thanks for putting us past 1,000,000. If you're a first time visitor, I hope you'll explore the site via the search bar or by categories or by just scrolling through the latest posts and clicking links.

There is a contact widget on the site if you have questions or want to suggest a name for us to include or have problems with the site. In looking at the older posts, I have discovered how many of the archived posts have broken images and links. We're working on it...