How I Built a 1,600+ Name Database Covering 50 Origins (and What I Learned About Global Naming)

I've been building BabyNamePick.com — a baby name database that now covers 1,600+ names from 50+ cultural origins. Here's what I learned along the way. The Technical Setup Framework : Next.js with static site generation Data : Single JSON file (names.json) with structured entries Pages : ~3,500 pre-rendered pages (name pages + category pages + blog posts) Hosting : Vercel (free tier handles it fine) Each name entry looks like: { "name" : "Seren" , "meaning" : "Star" , "origin" : "welsh" , "gender" : "girl" , "styles" : [ "nature" , "short" ] } Simple, flat, easy to query. No database needed. What I Learned About Names 1. Every culture has nature names Japanese has Sakura (cherry blossom). Welsh has Seren (star). Hawaiian has Kai (sea). Swahili has Baraka (blessing, from nature's abundance). Nature is the universal naming inspiration. 2. "Meaning" means different things Western names often have etymological meanings that nobody thinks about ("Matthew" = "gift of God" but nobody names th