It suggests to put in "Rob" as a name. I do, I hit "explore", and it says "Alaska 0" and the map is completely white. I try hitting the down button and the map is still white. I try dragging the slider, and everything's still white, except occasionally some state turns a very light gray. (Chrome on OSX.)

I try putting in multiple names, but it still seems to show only the first one in the map?

This needs some instructions/explanations. And from the HN title, I thought this was going to be something about names most associated with rich people...

It's pretty intuitive except when you type a name that is very unpopular as a registered first name with social security (which is where the data comes from according to the blog posts behind the About link)

I thought the same thing about "rich people" - I guess he meant rich as in "rich dataset"

But even the About link, once visible, just links to they guy's blog of most recent posts. There is no direct "about" on that page.

Rob doesnt seem like a great example, as it doesn't really start appearing until the 1950's

I had no idea what the buttons in the bottom left meant. Why is does the "play" button use a fast forward icon? Why doesn't it turn into a stop or pause icon when it's playing? When I first opened it, there's no indication of why I had to select a gender before I could even type a name. Displaying the input field (it doesn't look truly because it matches the color theme) and the gender button doesn't inform the user what to do at all.

Overall, it's pretty neat but it's a pretty good example of something that looks pretty but is the opposite of usable.

I actually find this sidetrack a bit strange as I spent close to no time on making it look pretty (because I'm generally very poor at doing that), instead focusing on allowing for an enormous amount of data analysis in a minimal interface. I understand some interface elements are unintuitive to some, but that's the nature of sole-developer work where we become myopic about the obviousness of things (e.g. I chose where things went and how they worked, so naturally it must seem completely obvious to me, even if it actually isn't).

On the flip side though, and this is just general commentary about how we analyze works, people who have difficulties assume that their experience is universal by the exact same myopia.

On some mobile devices this had a profoundly negative impact on responsiveness as the device struggled to animate the color changes.

However good points.

http://names.yafla.com/#n=Aiden,Jaden,Braden,Jayden,Kayden&s...

I would suggest that you look into using joyride/introjs to give a user an idea of how to use the app, and what it is...

I eventually figured out what it was and how to use it, and by that time I thought it was pretty cool (I like how the sparkline is on the left hand side) -- but it took far too long to find out what it was/how to use it...

p.s: Oh I see, apparently it's a Welsh name (should've known, Dylan Thomas...) I'm too tired to think.

Not being an American and to satisfy my idle curiousity - anyone have any idea why Benjamin jumps in popularity about 71-77?!

If it was unintentional then perhaps you have male selected, or haven't scrolled the side panel down. Hannah peaks in 2000.

It does need a bit of polishing but not to the degree some commenters here are suggesting. You have an explanation linked through "About" to a blog post. Some of that detail should probably be on the graph, e.g., explaining what clicking on the legend does.

Nice work!

-a tip telling you to select a gender

-the year will automatically start in a "play" mode (autoprogressing), starting at the first year with non-0 data. This should help those cases where people pull up results and think it is malfunctioning or otherwise not working because of a clear map.

-The autoprogress is clearly indicated by the color of the associated button.

Thank you all.