How to Find Someone’s Address by Name

If you want to reconnect with an old friend or surprise a relative with a gift, you’ll need their address.

But, not everyone displays their street address online for obvious reasons. 

However, if you have their name, you might be able to find what you’re looking for.

Here’s how to find someone’s address by name and some alternatives.

How to Find Someone's Address with Their Name

In the online world, everyone has a digital footprint, but finding someone’s address is much more difficult than finding their email and even phone number.

Here’s where you can start looking.

1. Public Records

The best way to find someone’s address is to check public records.

Government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels keep personal information– including addresses– of people who live in their judicial district.

To find the address of the person you’re trying to reach, you can search the databases of the Census Bureau, Social Security Administration, and the US Postal Service. There might be other local agencies that maintain public records online.

The downside is these agencies don’t provide address-related information to just about anyone. Where they draw the line depends on the public records statutes on the jurisdiction question. 

Voter registration lists are another way to get an address from a name, but the rules on who can access them and what’s listed on them vary from one state to another.  

You can check whether you’ll be able to find the information you’re looking for on the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) website.

2. Social Media

Social media platforms are great ways to find someone’s address by name.

Not many list their home addresses on their social media pages but there are some people, especially those that use social media accounts for business purposes, that do (or share their PO box address).

If they don’t have their address on their profile, you might be able to find an email address or a phone number.

3. Google Maps

If the person you know owns a business, there’s a good chance that it’s on Google Maps.

Although Google Maps is not the best tool to get someone’s home address, you can easily find the address of a business by typing in the name of the company in the search box. 

If they’ve added their business location to Google Maps, the app will show you where they are on the map and their address (and possibly phone number). 

4. Use a People Search Site

People search sites are, arguably, the most convenient tools to find someone’s address with their name because they do all the heavy lifting that comes with public database searches.

They crawl billions of public records from across the US and compile that information into one report.

Some of the best people search sites are:

• TruthFinder is a reverse lookup app that provides detailed reports about people, including everything from their full name and address to social media pages, criminal records, and weapon permits. You can search by name, address, phone number, or email address.
• BeenVerified is one of the best people search apps on the market that lets you perform specific searches. To find someone’s home address, you’ll need to enter their first and last name, the city where they live, and their state.
• PeopleLooker is a background check service that offers a variety of tools. Its reports include a full name, birthdate, address, phone number, email, and sometimes, criminal records and bankruptcy information. You can search on PeopleLooker by name, email, phone number, and place of residence. 
• Spokeo is a popular background check company where you can search for someone by name, phone, or email. The site lets you perform different types of checks and provides personal identity protection.

5. Web Search

If you haven’t tried it already, you can perform a quick search on your preferred search engine.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, or Baidu can look through billions of sites to find the information that you’re looking for, with the right combination of search terms.

In addition to the name, you can add anything else to the search query that might help the search engine identify the person in question and pull relevant results. This can include details like their workplace, age, and location.

If their address is listed on a website, the search engine will point you to it.

6. Phone Directory

Before the Internet, finding an address from a name meant having to grab your phone book, find the proper category and look for matches. 

Phonebooks are still printed and distributed and people who have opted to be on the white pages typically have their street addresses and ZIP codes listed on there.

If you prefer going digital, you can check some online phone directories.

7. Reverse Phone Lookup

If you’re looking to speed up the phone directory search, you might want to consider using one of the many reverse phone lookup services.

These services are rarely limited to phone searches, which means you can first look for a number and then look up someone’s address by phone number and location. 

One example is US Search, a website that lets you perform free searches by name, phone number, and address.

Other websites that provide reverse lookup services include:

• Instant Checkmate
• Intelius
• ZabaSearch
• CocoFinder

Send a Mail to the Previous Address and Request a Correction

If you can’t find someone's address by their name, you can try their old address.

If the person you’re trying to reach has changed address, the US Postal Service (USPS) may be able to help you get your mail to the right place.

USPS offers for main services to help mailers correct bad addresses and forward mail to the correct one, one of which is the Address Service Requested endorsement.

Essentially, if you send mail to an old address, the Post Office will forward it to the recipient and send a notice of the correct address to you for a small charge.

 Note that this service expired after 18 months of the address change. If you send mail to the old address after that, you will get a non-delivery notice.

8. Tracing Agency

Tracing agencies specialize in finding long-lost friends, family, and missing persons.

These agencies employ private investigators who have experience, training, and resources (such as Electoral Roll or Credit Agency Data) to locate a person to a current address.

If you can’t find the person you’re looking for on your own, a tracing agency is a good option. Before you settle on one, make sure that you understand their terms and that they’re legit.

Bottom Line

If you’re wondering how to find someone’s address by name, the short answer is: Online. There are plenty of tools– both free and paid– that you can try to find a person’s address, including public records, phone directories, and people search sites. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, your last resort would be a tracing agency.