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Old May 15th 05, 12:05 PM
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Default Baby names - recommendation engine?

Does such a thing as a recommendation engine for baby names exist? I'm
trawling for baby name websites, and not finding such a thing (although
I now know that the technique I'm looking for is called a
"recommendation engine" ;-).

I'm imagining a website along the lines of many movie and music
recommendation websites - "If you enjoyed movie_a, movie_b and
movie_c, you may also enjoy movie_d or movie_e".

Even Amazon's "people who bought that book also bought this" facility
uses the same basic concept.

The site I need right now is more along the lines of "if you're
considering names such as Tom and Dick, you may also like the name
Harry".

Our firstborn is due early January. Very early days yet, so lots of
time to choose names and plan for life to never be the same again. We
have a few possible boys' and girls' names listed, but we know there
are plenty more that we would seriously consider...if only we could
think of them.

I know some parents have great taste in names, and some have awful
taste...and, of course, taste is a personal thing. It would be good to
tap in to the name ideas of people with similar tastes to our own, and
consider some of the other names they have considered.

If there isn't such a thing already, somebody should set one up. As I
picture it...A new visitor would be given a list of (random) names to
rank ("yes", "maybe" or "no"?). Within a few tries, the server should
be able to start making sensible preditions as to what names are likely
to get good rankings, based on the user's previous responses and the
responses of others who have made similar choices.

It might be a useful tool to sugest a the perfect name, that the
parents-to-be wouldn't have ever thought of.

Please let me know if there is anything similar to this in existence.
And if there isn't...some code-geek out there has about 8 months to
make it happen in time! :P

fs
dad in 8 months and counting...