We just had our second a few weeks ago, and to figure out some names, we each got a big list of "kind of like this name," totally casual and noncommittal, and combined them. We then used a little Elo[1] rater script I whipped up to compare items, it was fun! Once you get a short list there's no good algorithm to figure it out, but using Elo we both found names we loved that we never would have thought about, and had a fun time doing so.
Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
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Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#152We recently had our first child and finding a name for him was extremely difficult. We tried using books and apps but they weren't that helpful. Part of the problem was that we wanted a name that would work in both english and spanish, and wasn't too popular or trendy. I found that I hated most boy names, especially the ones that are trendy today (Aiden, Jaiden, Zaiden). Feel free to name your kids whatever you want,…
This is a good list! I do disagree with #8 and #9 though...
#8: "just another kid among the other 10..." always seemed weird to me. There are tons of notable Peter's, John's, Anne's, and Olivia's in the world. The converse is of course the mistaken idea that a remarkable or unique name makes a remarkable or unique person and at least anecdotally in my life I've seen more young people find difficulty in the attention given to their uncommon name than I have people finding difficulty being unnoticed for having a common one.
#9: As parents you actually have a ton of control over nicknames when the child is small. I know a number of Jonathans who don't go by Jon, Joshuas who don't go by Josh, Daniels who don't go by Danny, etc. You 100% can't manage the names people use to TEASE your child (as you addressed in earlier points) but you can teach your child and those around them that initially you and then ultimately your child does have ownership of how their name is used.
Agree with the rest of your list, just wanted to give my 2c on those two!
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#153Speaking of names is it really true than in Sweden you have to get a baby name approved by some government office? How strict is that in practice?
In France this goes in front of a judge. Names that seem harmful to the child won't be accepted.
Famous occurrences are "Nutella" (ended up "Ella"), "Megane Renault" (a brand of car, ultimately accepted because it's old enough not to mean anything to kids), "Mohamed Merah" (same name as a terrorist who killed 7).
Evidence shows that some parents are just too dumb to be trusted not to set their child up for ridicule and bullying.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#154When we were hunting for baby names I found that fiction character naming books (ex: The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook) were really great for inspiration. They tend to focus on the perceived qualities of the names more than the social qualities and are often more bold in their offerings.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#155Wish this existed years ago! It would be interesting if there were phonetic ways to filter names, for example: starts with consonant/vowel, has X syllables, ends with X letter(s).
A more advanced version of this could be a system that detects phonetic/orthographic similarities between names that you do or don't like, and shows you an optimized list of names based on your apparent preferences.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#156FYI, see the usage note here:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hone%20in
The app itself seems to be oriented around viewing most popular names. It would be nice to have a way to view least popular as well.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#157Wish there was an option for "I'm not sure, show me this name again some other time"
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#158This will be our second kid, and at least for us figuring out a name that we both love is hard. There are literally tons of baby-name apps out there, most of them more fully-featured and polished than Nom de Bébé and you should probably use one of those. However a lot of them include a disturbing amount of tracking or for any number of reasons just didn't work for my wife and I (bugs, subscriptions, lack of names, et…
feature requests - - initials with full name, in various orders (country differences), and - full name with given name, to see how it reads, sounds, feels.
> full name with given name, to see how it reads, sounds
This was a critical step when naming my kids. You really need to see how yelling the full name sounds. If it is too awkward or has syllables that don't fall together easily, that can make it difficult when you (eventually) need to yell at them for doing something stupid.
Same with the first + middle combination -- those need to flow together well for occasions that require less than full yelling.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#159I would probably sanitize the db by ignoring the names from the last 20 years or so.
Re: Show HN: My wife is pregnant; naturally I made a baby-name app to prepare
#160I've always loved the term "baby name". Makes it seem like you grow out of it eventually and have to switch to an adult name like "Roger" or "Raymond".
hahaha