Updated August 29, 2017 Just ask nicely. If there’s no reason to hide your desire to know somebody’s name, sending a polite email is likely to get the result you want, especially if you’ve already had friendly contact with the person before. Check the domain of the email address – the part after the @ symbol. If it’s a free email provider such as Gmail or Yahoo, proceed to the next step. If it’s a custom domain, however, visit the website associated with it and try to determine whether it is a personal website for the owner of the email address. If that’s the case, his name might be somewhere on the website, such as on a page listing contact details or in the copyright information. If it’s not, run a WHOIS search on the domain. Unless the person you’re curious about chose to keep his details private when he registered the domain, his name will be listed in the results. Run a Facebook search for the email address. If the person you’re curious about used that address to register for a Facebook account, it’ll appear in the search results. Run searches for the email address, using both normal search engines such as Google and specialized people search services such as Pipl or Spokeo. You can also try searching for the user name alone (the part before the “@”) using both Google and Knowem, a specialized search engine that checks whether a particular user name is taken on social networks. You will have better luck if the user name is fairly distinctive. For example, “daffodil_racecar” would be easier to track down than “racecar_lover1972.” Writer Bio
