Do you love or hate your name? Do you know what it really means? How do you choose the right name for someone? We all have a first name, but how many of us really know its origin and history? This comprehensive dictionary provides a fascinating collection of linguistic, historical, and associated information about some 7,000 names, making it the ideal reference for linguists and family historians, as well as an important source of information for parents choosing a name for a child. It is the ultimate first name handbook, a delightfully informative, comprehensive survey of European and American names. New to this edition are two appendices which give the dictionary an international appeal: Common Names in the Arab World and Common Names of the Indian Subcontinent . These appendices should be especially helpful to linguists and historians interested in these parts of the world. Typical entries provide the linguistic and ethnic root of a name. "Jennifer," for instance, is a Cornish form of "Guinevere." Most entries also include the non-English form or cognate of a name. No other handbook comes close to the wealth of information found here.

Patrick Hanks has been a lexicographer and linguistic researcher for over twenty-five years. Flavia Hodges is a philologist, lexicographer, and publisher.