Have you ever received a call from a mysterious unknown caller, even though you never gave your number to a stranger? Or did you just miss a call from a potential employer, and want to know which company it was from, before calling back? Or do you simply want to confirm whether the number Samantha gave you is actually her own, before asking her out to coffee? There could be many reasons why you could be trying to do a phone number name lookup online.

Even though there is no globally maintained, official repository which you can use for phone number lookup, there are plenty of ways to get to a name. In this article, we will be talking about all of them and how to find someone’s name by their phone number:

Facebook is Your Best Friend

This method might not work every time, but if it does, you will have a name within a matter of seconds. All you have to do is log in to Facebook and paste the number in the search box. If the person has a phone number linked to their Facebook account, and if they have made it visible to the public (or at-least their friends of friends), their profile will appear in the search results.

Reverse Number Lookup on Google

Another simple way to have a shot at finding a person’s name by phone number is by performing a reverse phone number lookup on Google. The method might sound technical and difficult, but it’s anything but. Literally all you have to do is type the number (Along with the complete area/country code) in to the Google search bar, and hit Enter.

This method is especially relevant in case you are searching a business number. Most companies, institutions, and organizations have mentioned their contact details on their websites, which Google is able to pick up. Moreover, some people also have their numbers mentioned on online portfolios and CVs, which also increase your chances of finding a name.

Try Other Search Engines

If you didn’t find anything on Google, the odds of finding anything on other search engines are very high; however, it doesn’t hurt to try. The first alternative worth trying is Yahoo! Make sure you go through the results on pages other than the first one as well. Other popular search engines include Bing, Ask, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo.

Still no luck? Read on…

Use Phone Number Lookup Websites

There are some websites built for the sole purpose of allowing people to find someone’s name by phone number free. Whitepages.com is the oldest and most reliable of the lot. In addition to a reverse phone check, you can also perform a simple background check on a person by entering their name. Whitepages currently has the largest database of contact information available online.

If Whitepages didn’t work for you, maybe ZABASEARCH will. If you have put your contact information, like your phone number, address, or birth date etc. anywhere on the internet, it’s highly likely that ZABASEARCH has detected and stored it in their database. The website has been a subject of controversy for a long time, but what they do is actually, completely legal.

AnyWho.com is another people finder website that can help you find the elusive name. They update their databases every week so make sure you give it a go.

If none of the above worked for you, you can search for the name on 411. They also provide you to run a small background check on the person (if found).

Use Truecaller

Even though Truecaller allows you to search phone numbers online, it’s much more than just a lookup website. It has built a huge community of users via its smartphone applications, which enable it to crowd-source new contact information on the fly. Here’s how it works:

If you have the Truecaller application installed, and receive a phone call from an unknown number, the truecaller application searches to see if any other Truecaller user has a contact saved against the number. If a match is found, the name against the number appears on your screen. Click here to download truecaller for Android and here for IOS.

If Nothing Else Works, Do This…

If none of the above methods worked, don’t worry; we still have one last trick up our sleeve. However, this method will require you to send a message to the number. On WhatsApp. We know that this isn’t ideal, as the last thing you’d want to do is approach the person, but if you don’t have a problem with that, you must try this method out.

Here are the steps:

1. Open WhatsApp and click the “New chat” button.
2. Click “New Contact”.
3. Enter a pseudonym for the number and save it.
4. When the chat window opens, send a quick message to the number. This can be a simple message with any text you want.
5. Now open your contacts app and delete the recently saved number.
6. Go back to WhatsApp and select the conversation you just started.
7. Now click on the top bar to open the contact information.
8. Here, provided that the person’s privacy settings allow, you might be able to see the name (or the nickname) of the person written right below their phone number (After the ~ sign).
9. As an additional step, you can also delete the message from the conversation, if the person hasn’t seen it yet.

If you don’t see the name, then the person must have applied strict privacy settings on their WhatsApp profile. This also means that it will be virtually impossible for you to find any information on them anywhere else. So, what to do now? Well, you are left with no choices but to ask them. A simple, “Hey. Who is this?” should suffice. Or, if you are the patient type, you could just wait for them to text/call again and see if they mention their name this time.

Final Word:

Even though there isn’t any go-to solution to find someone’s name by phone number free, one of the aforementioned methods might just do the trick for you. Good luck!