firstnames.io | ENS Ecosystem Grant Proposal

I believe one of the best ways for ENS to connect with the average mainstream person will be through first names. I have a lot of respect for the digits and emojis, but people that aren’t in web3 have a hard time understanding the value in that. However, first names make sense to us in the Ethereum ecosystem and the non-web3 person. Many of the top people in our space rock their firstname.eth. Its pretty easy to understand why it would be cool if your web3 login/wallet address/decentralized website was your first name. Having an accurate database of first names could help us raise awareness about ENS and gain widespread adoption, which then could lead to people learning about the value in digits/emojis/integrating SIWE for their business. A good example is Tobi from Shopify buying tobi.eth over a year ago then recently making plans to integrate SIWE.

Mission:

My mission is to show the value of top tier ENS first names. I believe that popular first names are just as valuable as the crypto punks and bayc, and I would like to show the world that. I also want to create a reliable source of first name information for the ENS community. Unfortunately, it seems the community gets their first name information from forebears and LinkedIn, both of which are outdated and inaccurate. I have downloaded all of the first names stats from SSA.gov and organized them into an excel spreadsheet. The social security administration website is 100% accurate and by far the best source of information for first names. Finding a way to take this correct information and organize it in a way we can understand is critical for the first names.

What I’ve been building:

I currently have a database of over 3000 top first names in the US and organized them in pretty cool unique way. The first thing I did was rank the top 500 first names from every decade. I’ve also made a list of the top names in the US from 1970-present, 1980-present, 1990-present and 2000-present. There are no other lists like these on the Internet. This is really unique because you can see which names are most popular amongst people aged 0-53 years old. I would also show the actual number of people with that name. So you would see where it ranks, and exactly how many people have that name. Not approximate numbers like forebear’s uses. Forbears says there’s “approximately” 25,224 girls named Madison, which tells me the website is at least 20 years outdated. My stats from SSA.gov say there have been 399,707 girls named Madison since 1970. Having a first name database we can trust would be invaluable for not just the ENS community, but also new parents out there looking for trendy baby names. The picture at the top is a good example of what I would want the website to look like.

What I would use the money for:

The money from the grant would be used to help build the website. I’m a very average builder and could definitely use some help. I would also like to be apart of more twitter spaces explaining the value of first names. I may be an average builder but I would put my knowledge of US first names up against anyone in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Conclusion:

Having a reliable first name database would be very beneficial to the ENS community and it could help us gain widespread adoption. Being able to accurately measure the popularity of different first names is a valuable resource for buyers, sellers, and a potential whole new audience we can introduce ourselves to.

I also have some stats from Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain. I’m definitely open to suggestions on how to organize this. This is something I’m really passionate about and want to help anyway I can. I have a lot of ideas we could do to make this really cool.

My sources: US- ssa.gov Argentina- Renaper via la nacion Germnay- Beliebte vornamen Brazil- instituto brasilerio de geografia e estistatica Mexico- INEGI Spain- National statistics institute of Spain