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23
Jan

All right, all you baby name wizards out there: think you’re hot stuff? Here’s a fun little diversion for you: Step up and test your intellectual might against this diabolical gauntlet of brain-twisting baby name conundrums.

A word of warning: IQ is not about what you know but rather how well you can reason. While a general knowledge of names may be an asset here, it is not necessary to do well on this test. Success will be determined by your ability to spot patterns. In most cases, the answers are hiding in plain sight.

Have fun and don’t take it too seriously. Solutions will be revealed in a future instalment of the Baby Name Brainstorm.

Note: sometimes the full question is not immediately visible in the quiz widget. Mouse over the question area to reveal the full text.


Quizzes by Quibblo.com

06
Jan

 

The good folks over at Name.com have recently released the beta version of their Baby Naming Wizard (not to be confused with Laura Wattenberg’s Baby Name Wizard).

Like all good Wizards, it’s a no brainer to operate: Simply enter your last name and your baby name criteria, then press the magic button and like a Vegas slot machine, the Wizard will spin you up candidate first and middle names for your consideration. You can filter the lists by gender, name length, meanings, origins, popularity or particular letters.

Baby Naming Wizard

The Name Wiki is an open content, community effort and a great source of name information.

23
Dec

Think you’re a baby name expert? A reader recently sent me this baby name quiz game. Try your hand and see how many popular baby names you can list in three minutes.

Popular boys names quiz game

Popular girls names quiz game

I did pretty dismally, I must confess. This list is based on birth records from the US. Of course the most popular names vary from year to year and place to place. There are a lot of sites you can go to for the US data. If you’re interested in a more international view, I recommend the Baby Name Map which shows name popularity data from around the world.

If you’re an expectant parent looking for a more unique baby name, you might want to familiarise yourself with these names so you know which ones to avoid. You can always use the Brainstormer to help guide you to some more distinguished alternatives.