Introducing "What the Fuck Should I Name my Child?"
07 Aug 2014Names are hard.
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.
-- Phil Karlton
Phil may have been joking, but there's a lot of truth in this statement. It's hard enough to name a variable that's only going to be in scope for 5 lines, let alone naming another human being:
- With any luck, the name you choose will last 100 years or more.
- You're going to be speaking that name every day for the next 18 of those 100 years.
- Perhaps most importantly, your kid's name may affect his or her chances of success.
Help exists!
So, it's no wonder that parents turn to technology for help with choosing a name. There are a million websites out there, each with its own set of features - "find a name with a special, personal meaning!", "make sure the name you choose still has an available domain!", and the list goes on.
Would anyone call them "fun" to use?
I doubt it - which, if you ask me, is a problem! If you're about to bring a bundle of joy into the world, why should naming it be a dry, boring experience?
I would like to introduce you to something I call "What the Fuck Should I Name My Child?", the first baby-name tool designed for your adult eyeballs.
Inspired by The Fucking Weather and What the Fuck Should I Make For Dinner, it's...offensive. It's brash. It's rude. I know.
However...
WTFSINMC uses a surprisingly good algorithm to give you names for boys- and girls-yet-to-be. Also, if you're not into the whole "gender-assignment-at-birth" thing, WTFSINMC has you covered too!
Even if you're not planning to make spawn any time soon, I encourage you to check out WTFSINMC. I hope you get a chuckle (or two) out of it.
The "real" reason I built this thing
All that said, this site was primarily an excuse to practice web development, learn Backbone, and play with shiny workflow tools such as Grunt. I'm going to be writing a few blog posts in the near future about the technology I used, about the lessons I learned, and about my ideas for the site if it takes off.
Check out the source on Github, share it with your friends, and most importantly - please let me know if WTFSINMC helped you find a name!
I'll leave you with some comments from Reddit:
Love this!! It spit out 3 names that were already on our short list!!! --RoxMyPinkJox
So anyway, thanks for the link! We seriously found a name we'd not thought of and I said it out loud, and he said THAT'S IT! --Milfanie
Hilarious, I put in our last name and it actually suggested the name we chose on the first go. --Lucky86