History of this'n'that
Connections
Take names research and baby-book references with a grain of salt. Many claims are made that don't make any sense or are totally unsupportable. But still there are interesting things to find and connect.
There is overlap between place names and people's names, for lots of reasons you could figure out on your own if you started just making lists of all the names you think are interesting, or poking around on the internet or in the indexes of books. A book index can be a great source of names of a place or period of history. So can a phone book, for a snapshot of a town or city in a certain year. Cemeteries are good places to see names as the gravestones get older and then naming practices change over the decades or centuries.
There's no hurry. If you're interested in such things you can always add to your collection.
Baby Name Wizard A wonderful graph that changes as you type each letter, containing names from U.S. Social Security records of the past 125 years or so.
Social Security Administration (U.S.) has online tools with which you can get valuable information, such as whether your state was a Jessica or an Ashley state in 1986. Only New Hampshire and Wisconsin had a different most-popular-girl's name that year. They went with "Amanda." One had Jessica as the second-most-used name, and the other had... Ashley.
Names of the United Kingdom/Britain
Why is Peggy the nickname for Margaret?
"How about Lou? When I was in England, I heard that name and it seemed to have a little tinkle to it. Randy is good too."
You weren't listening QUITE hard enough in England, were you?
The Utah Baby Namer "An online help for parents looking for that distinctive name that says 'I'm a Utah Mormon!'"