Behind the Name Scraper

Extracts name data from Behind the Name — the internet's most thorough etymology database for first names. Pulls meanings, cultural origins, gender classifications, and usage notes for masculine, feminine, and unisex names across every culture the site covers, which is a lot of cultures.

Behind the Name Scraper Features

• Scrape all three gender categories — masculine, feminine, unisex — or pick just the ones you need
• Handles pagination automatically across up to 100 listing pages per gender, each containing roughly 20 names, so you don't have to think about it
• Cap total results with maxItems when you want a sample instead of the full corpus
• Extracts seven fields per name including etymology, origins, and direct links back to source pages
• Respects rate limits and retries failed requests without manual intervention
• Runs on 256 MB of memory, because scraping name data should not require a server farm

Who Uses a Name Etymology Dataset?

• App developers — populate name pickers, baby name apps, or character generators with real linguistic data instead of guessing
• Researchers — build datasets for cultural linguistics, naming trends, or cross-cultural analysis without copying pages by hand
• Game designers — source authentic names by culture and gender for NPCs, with meanings that actually correspond to something
• Data analysts — study name popularity patterns, origin distributions, or gender classification across regions
• Writers — find character names that carry the right etymological weight for a setting

How Behind the Name Scraper Works

1. You select which gender categories to scrape and optionally set result limits.
2. The scraper enqueues listing pages for each selected gender — up to 100 pages per category, crawled concurrently with automatic rate-limit handling.
3. Each page is parsed to extract name, gender labels, cultural origins, meaning, and full description text. Results are saved as structured records, and the scraper stops early if your maxItems cap is reached.

Input

{
  "genders": ["masculine", "feminine"],
  "maxItems": 1000,
  "maxPagesPerGender": 50
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
genders	Array	["masculine", "feminine", "unisex"]	Gender categories to scrape. Defaults to all three if left empty.
maxItems	Integer	0 (no limit)	Maximum total names to scrape across all selected genders. Set to 0 to collect everything.
maxPagesPerGender	Integer	100	Maximum listing pages to crawl per gender category. Each page contains roughly 20 names.

Scrape Only Feminine Names

{
  "genders": ["feminine"],
  "maxItems": 500
}

Quick Sample Across All Genders

{
  "maxItems": 50,
  "maxPagesPerGender": 3
}

Behind the Name Scraper Output Fields

{
  "name": "Theodora",
  "nameUrl": "https://www.behindthename.com/name/theodora",
  "gender": "Feminine",
  "genderCategory": "feminine",
  "origins": "Ancient Greek, English, Italian",
  "meaning": "gift of god",
  "description": "Feminine form of Theodore. This was the name of a Byzantine empress, the wife of Justinian I."
}

Field	Type	Description
name	String	The given name as listed on the site
nameUrl	String	Direct URL to the name's detail page on behindthename.com
gender	String	Gender classification label(s) as displayed on the site
genderCategory	String	The gender category that was crawled: masculine, feminine, or unisex
origins	String	Comma-separated cultural or linguistic origins (e.g. "English, Hebrew, Latin")
meaning	String	Short meaning or root translation of the name
description	String	Extended description with etymology and usage notes

FAQ

How many names can Behind the Name Scraper collect? Behind the Name Scraper can pull thousands of names per gender category. The site has roughly 100 pages per gender at ~20 names each, so a full unrestricted run across all three categories yields around 6,000 names. Set maxItems if you want fewer.

Does Behind the Name Scraper handle duplicate names across genders? Behind the Name Scraper scrapes each gender category independently. Some names (particularly unisex ones) may appear in multiple categories. The genderCategory field tells you which listing the record came from, so deduplication is straightforward on your end.

How long does a full scrape take? Behind the Name Scraper typically completes a full run in under 10 minutes. It crawls up to 10 pages concurrently with built-in rate-limit handling, so the site stays happy and you get your data without timeouts.

What does it cost to run? Each run has a $0.10 start fee plus $0.001 per name record. A full 6,000-name scrape costs roughly $6.10. A quick 500-name sample runs about $0.60.

Need More Features?

Need custom fields, filters, or a different target site? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use Behind the Name Scraper?

• Structured output — seven clean fields per name, ready for import into spreadsheets, databases, or downstream pipelines without manual cleanup
• Flexible scoping — scrape everything the site has or narrow to one gender category with a 50-name cap, depending on whether you need a corpus or a quick sample
• Low overhead — runs on minimal memory with automatic concurrency and retry logic, so you point it at the data and walk away