Namesake

Why I built this

Yes - this building mama is also an expecting mama! My husband and I have been leaning on AI chatbots to help us brainstorm baby names, and we quickly ended up overwhelmed with options. We needed a way to actually keep track of candidates and see where we agreed (or very much didn’t).

So I built Namesake: a simple, private space for two people to build a shared list of name candidates, vote on them independently, and then compare results together.

What it does

• Create a room and share the code with your partner so you can each vote privately.
• Swipe (or tap) yay or nay on each name candidate, one at a time.
• Suggest new names with a quick prompt - e.g. “literary,” “a bit unusual,” “ends in -a” - and get fresh candidates to react to.
• Tap any name to see its meaning and origin.
• Compare votes with your partner to see your overlap - the names you both loved.

Screenshots

Try it

Namesake is live at namesake.mamabuilds.dev. Create a room, send the code to your partner, and start swiping.

How I built it

This one is still very much a work in progress - fitting, since our name shortlist is too! Building it pushed me to learn some new-to-me tools, like simple auth so my husband and I can each log in separately. I went with “security by obscurity” for now: a randomly named room code instead of real accounts.