Like I noted elsewhere, the reason I started this website was because many of the baby name websites that I found were presenting the same data in boring, ad-filled pages. One of the least inspiring ways to browse names is alphabetically in a long list since there is no context for popularity of names or name relatedness. Many sites offered no passion for the names or interest in looking at it in different ways... they were cluttered, slow and difficult to navigate.

I have written a review of what I think are some GOOD baby name websites. This is my review of the underperformers (who show up very high in Google search rankings)

To get a list of these "bad" sites, just go to Google and search for "baby names," then all the sites in the first couple pages which I did not mention in my review of good websites are the set of not-great websites. I am only slightly kidding.

Here is a mini-review for the top 20 links of a "baby names" Google search results (as of June 30, 2008):

1. babynames.com: (see my review of good sites)
2. www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/: (see my review of good sites)
3. babyhold.com: active community with great name discussions, but navigation of names is poor (not sure about order), at least 3-4 animated ads per page.
4. Baby Zone: popup and animated banner ads; alphabetic lists; to get meaning and namesakes, click the name, wait for a FULL AD PAGE TO DISPLAY (yuk), then see the info. They have a baby name generator which makes up words - its kind of interesting. Active forums on lots of pregnancy topics. It is one part of a much larger website
5. Baby Names World at parentsconnect.com: Four animated ads on each page; a decent table of names with many search options and meaning/origin/rating for each name (not sure where the rating comes from). Can view the top 1000 names for any year since 1880. Can save names for later. It is one part of a much larger website.
6. thinkbabynames.com: Front page is enticing and looks different than the familiar formula of the others - only one animated banner ad on top and one on bottom. Start searching by letter or popularity (USA, or several other countries); try clicking on a name and you get this FULL AD PAGE TO DISPLAY (yuk), then see the info. Or search by name to see a page with fairly detailed meaning and origin info, along with a long list of related names, and also 3 big ads.
7. babycenter.com:
   Three animated ads, very similar layout of page. Part of a larger site. The name browsing is alphabetical by letter (boring).
8. Baby Names Country
   Popup ads, animated ads, adsense ads, alphabetical browsing in a table. Looks almost identical to baby names world @ parentsconnect site.
9. mybaby-name.com
   Ugggh... more than half the front page is filled with Goog AdSense text ads. Name browsing is awkward and their definition of popularity is limited to who browses this site.
10. Finally, Baby Name Wizard shows up (see my review of good sites)
11. (onto page 2 of Google search results)Parenthood.com:
    This is a busy page with lots of ads and links to other parts of parenthood.com. Alphabetic browsing is limited to the first 200 names beginning with a letter that you have to type in a box. With 30,000 names, then some names are not reachable (unless you search for that name or the beginning of the name in particular)! There is no way to get any popularity info.
12. Baby Name Wizard Blog post:
    This post has a ton of comments and probably a lot of people linking to it. See my review of good sites for more info.
13. Top Baby Names:
    seems affiliated with parents.com and has 3-4 colorful or animated ads on each page. You can browse the most popular names (not sure which year), then click a name to get absolutely nothing new. They try to get you to register to view the state by state popularity data (publicly available at the Social Security website).
14. Yeahbaby:
    this has some of the same sidebar links as babynamescountry and parentsconnect. Alphabetical browsing (my least favorite method) in a long list. They have a spot in the name detail page for "unintended nicknames," which is a good idea, but I couldn't find any (e.g. for Richard). 4 animated and/or goog adsense ads.
15. ivillage.com:
    iVillage is a well-visited site with a lot of unique content, and their baby name finder is actually not too bad. There are message boards and links to Baby Name Wizard. They actually list names of famous people broken down by category.

Here are the rest of the top 20:
www.babynamenetwork.com (popups/ads, not pretty, alphabetic browsing)
www.babynamesofireland.com (nice resource! has audio pronunciation, too)
www.123-baby-names.com (4 busy ads, alphabetic browsing)
www.cutebabynames.org (alphabetic browsing, popularity browsing broken)
www.popularbabynames.com (copy of other site layout)

Do you see what I mean? There are some interesting elements of a couple of these sites (like the domain name), but mostly nothing too great or original.