Washington ( CNN ) -- The White House on Friday began releasing the names of visitors as part of a Barack Obama campaign promise to run a more transparent administration . Last month , Norm Eisen , special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform , said records of White House visitors would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis beginning in December . `` We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans , but by shining a light on the business conducted inside it , '' he said . `` Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process . '' As part of that initiative , he offered to look back at records from before the announcement . Eisen said Friday that 110 disclosure requests from September have been processed , yielding nearly 500 visitor records that have been posted on the White House Web site . Since the release covers only those records that are at least 90 days old , the first records cover January 20 to July 31 . `` This first release is only the latest in a series of unprecedented steps by the president to increase openness in government , '' Eisen said . Given that up to 100,000 people visit the White House each month , the names published Friday included people with some very familiar names -- including William Ayers , Michael Jordan , Michael Moore , Jeremiah Wright and R. Kelly -- that did not belong to their more famous counterparts , he said . `` The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House , '' Eisen said . The names can be seen at www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records .
During his campaign , President Obama promised to have a more transparent administration . Records of visitors will be available on an ongoing basis starting in December . Up to 500 people visit the White House each month .