Hacker News Reader

Comment by zppln | Hacker News Reader

As someone in this process right now, my reasoning is more like this: remove "Adolf", remove all names that end with 'y' (local rule), remove all names already taken by close friends and colleagues (you wouldn't want them thinking you copied them), remove basically all names from your own generation because they remind you of people you went to school with, remove anything resembling a pornstar name, remove the names of your parents' generation because they remind you of... well, parents. Apply some ad hoc rules, e.g. only names with two syllables. What you're left with is usually well tested names from your grand parent's generation and back.

View on HN

I thought the idea was to take an ordinary name, like "Bill", and replace the i's with y's to be edgy and hyp and curse your chyld with correctyng everyone who spelz yt wryng.

That's akin to kirakira names in Japan.

> remove basically all names from your own generation because they remind you of people you went to school with, remove the names of your parents' generation because they remind you of... well, parents

I wonder if this is what happened to "Karen" since it had such a sharp drop-off decades before it became a slur. I can't think of a more "baby-boomer white woman" name, so it's a neat way for people to wrap their sexism, racism, and ageism up into a single easily-deniable word: https://www.behindthename.com/name/karen/top/united-states

The male equivalent is "Steven" (or "Stephen" which has the same trajectory). See

https://nametrends.net/name.php?name=Steven

> I can't think of a more "baby-boomer white woman" name

Cathy

There was a time in my life where everyone I met seemed to be named Cathy.

Quite, but then you have to sum up the Catherines, Katherines, Kathryns, Kathleens, and a few other variants.

Hmm. I was born at about peak Karen, and certainly did know some Karens in my elementary-school days. But even then, it didn't break 2%. Jennifer hit 4% some years later.

this is surprisingly close to the algorithm we used when naming our kids. Another important rule for us was that the name couldn't already be popular, but couldn't be really obscure either, a sweet spot where the name could potentially be popular in 10 or so years.

Yup, that was important to us as well for our first kid. And we actually ended up with a name we're very pleased with (and one that had never really crossed my mind before), something I honestly didn't think would be possible when we started.

My wife and I are working on names for our first child. Did you ever generate a list using your algorithm? We are trying to follow similar rules for our naming choice.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Get a list of the top 1000 names.

2. Remove the top x names.

3. Randomize the names.

4. Go through the list slowly, say them out loud with the last name, and eliminate names you 100% know you won't choose. If you find yourself pausing on a name wondering if you should keep it, then keep it for now. Keep an open mind.

5. If a name sticks out, put a star by it.

6. When it starts getting too monotonous, then stop and pick it up later.

7. After you're done, randomize them again and make another pass.

8. Repeat until you have a small list, and share them with your partner.

Note: there are good names outside the top 1000, too.

10. Make an NFT of the remaining names and give this to the child. 11. Profit :)

Sorry no, we just used various apps and reduced the lists they provided manually. Usually the lists local to my country are only a thousand or so names long, so it's fairly quick work. I think that might be a bit more tedious for the US from what I've seen. There was an Android app posted here a while ago [1] that is clean and has over 100k names, which is a bit steep. But it also allows you to filter by decade, which might help reduce the scope somewhat.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29118785

My guideline was that the probability that they would share a class with someone with the same name was below some threshold. This kept things in perspective since "in the top x in popularity" wasn't very meaningful to me. And if it was on the high side, I wanted to see it trending away from popularity over the last decade.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com