Review: Expert Tools on Baby Name Wizard

I've been a fan of Baby Name Wizard for years. I can't for the life of me remember where I heard about the site, as it was several years ago. I started following the Baby Name Wizard blog, written by Laura Wattenberg, not just for ideas of what to name Sprout, but because it's really interesting. Even if you've already named your children, dog, cat, fish & boat, it's interesting to discuss naming trends & look at the origins of names.

One of the best things about Baby Name Wizard is the tools available on the site. Namefinder, Namipedia, Name Voyager & Name Mapper all allow you to look at names in a different way, for free.

Namefinder allows you to search a vast database of names by gender, first letter, number of letters, popularity, origins, etc. So much easier to use than those baby name books that basically work like a phone directory!

Namipedia gives you the origins & pronunciation of each name, as you'd expect from any baby name book. Where it gets better than that is the crowd-sourced information on famous people with the name, nicknames & even sibling names that go with it.

Name Voyager is probably one of my favourite tools, though it's the simplest. It gives you a graph showing the popularity names, based on US data since the 1800s. Try typing in your name, or better yet, the first few letters to see similar names, & see what happens!

Name Mapper is also a great visual tool, showing the popularity of names in the US by state.

If you're truly a name geek or, perhaps expecting a baby, you can subscribe to the Expert Tools to get even more functions:

Expert Name Finder uses data & algorithms exclusive to Baby Name Wizard to learn about your taste, suggesting names that "match,” while you guide it with expert controls including the starting letters, length & even connotations of the name. You can check out a demontration video here.

Name Matchmaker works to help you find names that you like by giving examples & narrowing down the selection for you. It's pretty amazing & the demonstration video here explains far better than I can how it all works.

Name Voyager Expert is a visual tool that allows you to see a graph showing the popularity of names in the US. You can find combinations of letters anywhere within a name, for exmaple all names with a "Q" in them, or ending in "-ette." Or you can narrow your search based on name popularity, past & present.

This is just a brief synopsis of what Baby Name Wizard can do--if you've made it this far in my post without heading over there already, you really should! & if you are seriously looking for a baby name--try subscribing for a trimester, nine months or annually!


Visit Baby Name Wizard, follow them on Facebook or Twitter too!


Disclaimer: I received a free subscription to Expert Name tools with Baby Name Wizard in return for writing a review of the service.

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