How Name Match works, and why names never repeat

The problem we set out to fix

Most name apps do one of two things that make choosing a name with someone harder than it needs to be. Some make your partner install the same app and create an account before they can vote, or put the matching behind a paywall. Others show you the same names over and over: you say no to Henry on Monday and Henry is back on Wednesday.

Name Match is built around three rules: your partner can join from a text message in any browser; a name you've rated is never shown to you again; and every card carries the name's real record, from 1880 to the latest year, so you're deciding with facts instead of vibes.

What's in the deck

The names come from the Social Security Administration's national file, which lists every name given to at least five babies of one sex in a year since 1880. ¹ That file has about 106,000 spellings, but many appear only a handful of times. A deck of 106,000 would be mostly one-off spellings you'd never consider.

So the deck uses the names that pass the same threshold we use for our name pages: at least 50 babies a year in five or more years, or at least 200 in a single year. Rare spellings that sound and look like a more common name are grouped with it rather than dealt separately. Two kinds of link decide that grouping: Wikidata's "said to be the same as" property, a public, sourced statement that two given names are versions of each other ³, and a spelling rule (no more than two letters different, with the same sound pattern). That leaves a pool of about 10,000 names.

The filters, and why there's no "origin" filter

Every filter is something we can compute from the Social Security counts:

• Girl, boy or both. A name is offered in a girls' room if at least 10% of the babies given it were girls, so Avery and Charlie show up for both.
• Popularity, by the name's rank in the latest year: top 100, not in the top 10, ranked 101 to 1,000, or beyond the top 1,000.
• Era, by the decade when the name was given most: before 1950, 1950 to 1989, or 1990 and later.
• Length in letters, starting letters, and syllables. Syllables are estimated from the spelling by a rule, so a few names will be off by one. We label the filter as an estimate for that reason.
• Gender-neutral: at least 50 babies in the latest year, with each sex at least a quarter of them.

We don't offer an origin or meaning filter. Most name sites have one, but the origins behind them are often unsourced or copied from each other. We only show a name's meaning when it has been researched against a cited source and given a confidence label (documented, traditional or uncertain). Until then, the card says "Meaning not yet researched." A filter built on guesses would quietly drop good names and keep bad data.

Before you open a room, the form tells you how many names fit your filters. If it's fewer than 20 we ask you to loosen one, so you don't run out on day one.

Why you and your partner see the same names

If each of you got a random deck, you'd rarely see the same name, and matches would only appear after hundreds of cards. Instead, each room has one shuffled order, and everyone in the room walks it.

The shuffle is weighted toward names that are actually given today, so the deck isn't 90% names five babies got last year, but rare names still turn up. The method is a standard one for weighted random order: every name gets a random number, scaled by its weight, and the deck is sorted by the result. ² The random numbers come from the room's own seed, so the order is fixed for the room and different for every other room.

On top of that, about one card in three is a name your partner has already said yes to and you haven't seen yet. You're never told it's one of theirs (that would nudge you), but it means a shared yes turns into a match quickly.

Why names never repeat

When the server deals you a card, it first writes that name to your seen list for the room, then sends it to your screen. Every later deal leaves out anything on that list. Because the list lives on our server and not in your browser, it holds across reloads, devices and weeks.

Two details are deliberate:

• A card you haven't answered yet comes back first. If you close the tab with a card on screen, you see that same card when you return. It's the one you were looking at, not a repeat.
• Undo only reverses your last answer. Press Undo (or Backspace) and the card you just rated returns to the top. It's the only way a rated name comes back, and it's your choice.

When you've rated every name that fits your filters, the deck says so and tells you how many that was. It never starts over.

How matches work

A name is a match when everyone in the partner role has said yes to it: you and your partner (or partners). The moment the second yes lands, you both see "It's a match" with a share card. If your partner matched while you were away, you'll see it the next time you open the room.

Family members can join through a separate family link. Their yeses appear in a "Family" tab, so you can see that Grandma loved Hazel, but they never create a match or block one.

Your shortlist is ordered by combining each partner's own ranking: each of you can move a match up or down, and the shared order adds up those positions (a method known as a Borda count). Ties go to the name you matched on first. You can leave a note on any match. Once you've decided, the room's owner can lock in a name; voting closes and the room stays as a keepsake. On the birth day, locking in can start the child's private growth record with the name already filled in.

Links, accounts and privacy

• Invite links are long, random and private. Each one is 192 bits of randomness; we store only a fingerprint of it, never the link itself. A partner link works once and expires after 14 days; a family link works for up to 20 people for 30 days. The room's owner can turn any link off, which also removes anyone without an account who joined through it.
• No account for voters. A partner who joins without an account is remembered by a private cookie that only works for that room. If they later create an account in the same browser, their votes come with them.
• Every action is checked. Each vote, note or deal checks on the server that you're a current member of that room. Someone without access gets "not found".
• Share cards carry no personal data. The image shows the name, its curve and its rank, nothing about your room, your list or who you are.

Where the nicknames come from

Name pages list nicknames from an open, Apache-licensed list of English given names and their nicknames. ⁴ It covers common names well and rare names barely, so a missing nickname means the list doesn't have one, not that none exists.

Ready to try it? Open a name room or look up any name in the baby names hub.