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Terms of use

Version 2.0 · Last updated: 2026-05-24 · Read alongside our Privacy policy

1. About these terms

These terms of use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the website at bubsname.com and any related subdomains (collectively, the "Service"). By accessing the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

The Service is operated as a personal, non-commercial project. The operator does not carry on a business of providing the Service. Nothing in these Terms attempts to exclude or limit any consumer guarantee that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)).

2. Definitions

Content
Anything appearing on the Service, including baby name statistics, etymology notes, multilingual variants, maps, charts, editorial text and metadata.
Source Data
The raw datasets published by Australian state and territory Registries of Births, Deaths & Marriages, by Wikipedia, by Wikidata, and by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs — see /about-data for full attribution.
Tools
Interactive features such as the Shortlist, Couple's Matcher, Sibling-name suggester, Aussie-nicknames generator, This-or-That A/B voter and Name Translator.
User
Any natural person who accesses the Service.

3. The service we provide

The Service aggregates and presents publicly-available baby name data, including:

  • Rankings and counts from 8 Australian state and territory BDM registries (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT) — sourced under open data licences.
  • A trans-Tasman comparator using NZ DIA data.
  • Etymological and multilingual content sourced from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikidata (CC0).
  • Editorial overlays (narrative summaries, "extinct names", state-migration insights, decade trends) produced by us.
  • Interactive Tools intended for personal exploration and decision-making.

The Service is provided free of charge and without registration. We do not display advertising and do not maintain a mailing list.

4. Acceptable use

You may use the Service for any lawful purpose, including:

  • Personal name research as a parent or family member.
  • Educational or academic use (citing the source as required by the original data licence).
  • Journalistic reporting (we appreciate a link back, but it is not legally required).
  • Building derivative works that comply with the underlying licences listed in §8.

You must not:

  • Scrape, bulk-download or mirror the Service in a way that disrupts its operation or imposes an unreasonable load on its infrastructure. If you need bulk data, use the original sources we link to in /about-data, or contact us.
  • Bypass, disable or interfere with security features, rate limits or access controls.
  • Use the Service or its Tools to harass, defame, dox, impersonate or intimidate any person — including via shared shortlists or couple-matcher tokens.
  • Upload material that infringes intellectual property rights, includes malicious code, or violates Australian or applicable foreign law.
  • Attempt to identify individual children or families from the aggregate data (the data is anonymised aggregate registry counts; any attempt to re-identify natural persons is misuse).
  • Use the Service for automated decision-making that materially affects an individual without independent verification of the underlying data.

5. Interactive tools & shared links

Our Tools (Shortlist, Couple's Matcher, A/B voter, etc.) primarily store their data in your browser's localStorage — nothing is sent to our servers unless you explicitly click "share" or "save link".

When you share a shortlist or couple-matcher session, a random token is generated and the corresponding name list is stored in our cache for 30 days, after which it is permanently deleted. The shared content includes only the names you selected and the optional title you provided — never any personal information about you.

Anyone with the share link can view the shared content. Treat the link as you would any other unlisted URL: share it only with people you intend to share it with.

6. Data accuracy & disclaimers

We make reasonable efforts to keep the Service in sync with the underlying Source Data and to correct errors promptly when they are reported. We do not, however, warrant that the Content is:

  • complete (some jurisdictions publish only top-N rankings; we disclose gaps on /about-data);
  • accurate at any specific point in time (we refresh annually around the time each jurisdiction publishes);
  • suitable for any particular purpose — including legal name choice, demographic forecasting, commercial product development or scholarly publication without independent verification.

Decisions you make based on the Content (including the actual name you give a child) are your own. Always cross-reference with the original source before relying on a number for anything consequential.

Australian Consumer Law note: The disclaimers above do not exclude any consumer guarantee that applies under Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) and that cannot lawfully be excluded. To the extent the Service is supplied to you as a consumer for non-business use, those guarantees remain in force.

7. Indigenous content

bubsname acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands across Australia and pays respect to Elders past and present. Some names that appear in colonial-era BDM records may carry cultural protocols — for example, "sorry business" restrictions on speaking the names of recently-deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

We follow the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research as guidance, including the principles of Indigenous self-determination and cultural integrity. If you identify a name on the Service that should be removed, withheld from search, or contextualised differently, contact us and we will respond within 7 days.

8. Intellectual property

8.1 Site code

The application code powering bubsname is licensed under the MIT licence (open source). The repository, if and when made public, will retain the full licence text.

8.2 Source Data

The underlying name datasets are republished under their original licences:

  • NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT BDM datasets — CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International) or equivalent state-level open data licence.
  • Wikipedia text excerpts — CC BY-SA 4.0 with attribution.
  • Wikidata multilingual variants — CC0 1.0 (public domain).
  • New Zealand DIA name data — CC BY 4.0 NZ.

See /about-data for per-source attribution and URLs.

8.3 Our editorial content

Original editorial text on bubsname (narrative summaries, "extinct names" framing, nickname playbook, multicultural community pages, this page) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Attribution example: "Source: bubsname.com" with a link back.

8.4 Trade marks

"bubsname" and the wordmark are common-law trade marks of the operator. You may use the name in editorial reference (e.g. "according to bubsname.com") without permission. Use as a brand identifier requires written permission.

9. Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law and subject to any non-excludable consumer guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available". The operator excludes all warranties not expressly given.

Where the Australian Consumer Law applies and a service provided is not of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, the operator's liability for failure to comply with a consumer guarantee is limited (at the operator's option) to:

  • supplying the service again; or
  • paying the cost of having the service supplied again.

Nothing in these Terms purports to exclude or limit liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability under the consumer guarantees regime, liability for personal injury caused by negligence, or liability for fraud.

10. Privacy

Your privacy is governed by our Privacy policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. The Privacy policy describes what information we collect, how we use and disclose it, how to access or correct it, and how to complain.

11. Suspension & termination

Because the Service is free and there are no accounts, "termination" is largely symmetric: you can stop using the Service at any time. We can, however, restrict or deny access (for example via rate-limiting, IP block or Cloudflare challenge) where we reasonably suspect abuse, misuse or activity in breach of §4.

We may also discontinue the Service in whole or in part at any time. Any shared links or cached data will continue to behave as described in §5 until their TTL expires.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms occasionally. The version number and "Last updated" date at the top of the page record the most recent revision. Material changes will be flagged on the site (banner or homepage notice) for at least 30 days. Continued use of the Service after a change constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

13. Governing law

These Terms are written in English (Australian) and intended to be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of New South Wales, Australia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. To the extent permitted by law, any dispute arising from or relating to these Terms or the Service will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales.

If you access the Service from outside Australia, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local law. Nothing in these Terms overrides consumer-protection rights you may have under the law of your habitual residence.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms or any of the matters above: