Names Arrangement

The almost 3,000 names of the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 will be inscribed on bronze parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools. A formal process is now being conducted with the next-of-kin the victims to allow them to verify how the names should be inscribed and provide information to aid in the names arrangement.

Memorial designer Michael Arad explains that the design concept “allows us to place the names of those who died that day next to each other in a meaningful way, marking the names of family and friends together, as they had lived and died."

As described below, names will be arranged within three levels of “meaningful adjacencies” defined by where they were, their affiliations (e.g., companies or groups attending a conference together), and their personal relationships.

First, names will be inscribed within nine groupings on the Memorial.





Another defining feature of people’s experience on September 11, in addition to where they were, is who they were with. Some were with relatives, friends, and colleagues; others were with people they barely knew or had just met, but with whom intense bonds were quickly formed as a result of a shared response. The design allows for names to be grouped to reflect these meaningful relationships.

While affiliation names will not be inscribed on the Memorial, the names of victims from the same affiliations will be clustered together within each of these groupings. For example, the names of employees and visitors to the same company will be inscribed together, as will the members of each flight crew. First Responders will be listed by inscribed sub-groupings pertaining to their agenices and units within this grouping, as confirmed by the agencies.



The next-of-kin of the victims are also invited to request the names of specific individuals next to whom they would like their loved ones’ names to be inscribed, whether they be family, friends, or colleagues. The Memorial & Museum will make its best efforts to honor all of these requests.



Next-of-kin will also be able to indicate if a loved one was pregnant at the time of her death, and to request to be contacted about acknowledging her unborn child on the Memorial. If the next-of kin-chooses, the pregnant victim’s inscribed name will be followed by the words “and her unborn child.”

The hope of the Memorial & Museum that by arranging the names of those who knew each other in their lives next to one another in their deaths, their loved ones will have a deeper and more significant Memorial experience.

Kiosks on the Memorial Plaza will allow all visitors, even those who did not know anyone who perished, to learn about the victims and bring their own meaning to the Memorial by looking up information, such as places of birth, companies, and ages.

If you are the next-of-kin of a victim, you should expect to receive a Name Verification and Arrangement package in the mail by the end of June 2009.  You may fill out the form included in that package in hard copy, or you may do so online here, using the secure log-in and password received in your Name Verification and Arrangement package. Your participation in this process is critical to determining how the names will be arranged on the Memorial.