Designing Meaning-Based Name Discovery: From King to Ocean

Most baby name sites organize by popularity or alphabet. We took a different approach: meaning-first discovery. Here is why and how. The Insight When we analyzed search queries hitting BabyNamePick , a clear pattern emerged: parents search by meaning more than any other attribute. Queries like "names meaning king", "names meaning ocean", or "names meaning light" dominate our traffic. Building the Meaning Taxonomy The challenge: meanings are not standardized. "Strong" in English might be "brave" in Norse context or "powerful" in African traditions. We needed a taxonomy that groups related meanings without losing cultural nuance. Each name maps to one or more clusters, enabling cross-cultural discovery. A parent searching for king names finds: Rex (Latin: king) Malik (Arabic: king) Rajan (Sanskrit: king) Brendan (Irish: prince) The UX Decision We chose dedicated meaning pages because: SEO value — Each meaning page targets a specific long-tail keyword Storytelling — A page about names mea