For decades, telephone directories have made it easy for users to find a phone number based on the name of the person they're trying to call. And now thanks to the internet it's easy to run a name search by phone number. Whether you have a number you don't recognize on your caller ID or have found a number you jotted down but can't remember who it belongs to, finding the name of the person or business that's trying to reach you using nothing but their phone number is easy to do now.

Basically, you just need to find a reverse lookup service online and use its search function. These services let you run a quick search and get an idea of who is calling you, but in nearly every instance you'll have to pay a small fee in order to get the full name of the person who is connected to the number you have. The reason is that these services have to access the database of the provider of the phone number in question, and they then charge you a fee to do so as well.

The good news is that in many instances you can ensure that the name is actually worth identifying. A good service, for example, will actually start by letting you run a free search which will give you basic info like the city and state that the owner of the number lives in. This lets you figure out if there's a good chance you'll actually know the person or want to call them back. Then, if you want, you can pay a small fee and get the full range of information connected to the account.

Not only will you be able to run a name search by via someone's phone number and find out exactly who is calling you, but you will usually be able to access an address, a Google Maps location, the carrier the phone number is attached to, and even information about the other members of the household.

In short, you can use a single mobile phone number lookup to get a huge amount of information. And even though these search results aren't totally free in most cases, they're still very inexpensive and well worth it for many, especially when you desperately need to figure out just who it is that keeps trying to contact you before you actually pick up the phone and call them back.