OK, you asked for it. Well, no you really didn’t — more like you failed to ask for anything. So I’m forced to up the stakes. I’m not getting enough sign-ups for my newsletter, so for the next two months (May 2008 /June 2008) I’m giving away a free database each month for all subscribers.

Now of course these are not going to be my premium database products, I need to sell those … these are databases that you can find online if you search deep enough and long enough. But you won’t need to search at all — by subscribing I’ll give you a direct link that you can use, no charges, no further up-sell, nothing except you need to subscribe to my newsletter, which will tell you of new premium databases as they become available.

Our first free database will be the first-names database, over 28,000 first names, their origins and meaning. I know, lots of you may already have this — but I also know only a small minority have noticed that over 8000 names have a tab character preceding and following the name entry in the original database. I have deleted those from our version of course, because they prevent ‘exact match’ queries, which is what most people would use for a first-name (or baby-name) query.

I looked at some of the names that had the tabs, and searched them on Google. Results returned were as low as 300-and-some matches. Names that didn’t have the tabs always return about 500,000 matches. Obviously, most people with baby-name or first-name websites have never noticed this problem with the database. You can have a database without that problem simply by subscribing to my newsletter (put your email in the box at upper right). If you have an existing baby-name or first-name meanings site with fewer than 28,000 names returned on query, I’d suggest you replace your database with this one.

If you don’t have a first-name or baby-name site, I don’t suggest you start one with this database, though you could. Much better, would be to use this database to enhance a site that focuses on other information. Maybe a biographical site, with each first-name linked to a pop-up that gives the meaning and origin for those names. Use your imagination.

No publicly available database should be the basis for an entire site! Use commercial databases to enhance sites you build around your own private database, to create ‘value added’ sites that will attract loyal visitors.