This is a CSV file that contains a persons given name (first name) and its associated nicknames or diminutive names. CSV was the easiest format to use. Maybe I'll release this in XML or something later, or maybe a kind soul who uses this library wants to contribute another format they converted it into?

This lookup file was started from a genealogy page on the web at http://www.tngenweb.org/franklin/frannick.htm. Because the lookup is based off of a dataset used for genealogy purposes there are some old names that aren't used commonly these days, but there are recent ones as well. Examples are "gregory", "greg", or "geoffrey", "geoff". There was also a significant effort to make it machine readable, i.e. separate it with commas, remove human conventions, like "rickie(y)" would need to be made into two different names "rickie", and "ricky".

There is some Java code here that can be used to parse the lookup. There is also a Perl script that in the downloads section that can do the same.

This is a relatively large list with about 1600 names. Any help from people to clean this list up and add to it is greatly appreciated. Think of it as a wiki. Just request to join the project and you'll be added.

This project was created by Old Dominion University - Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group. More information about the creation of this lookup can be found here.