I’m interested to hear how you all keep track of or organize your names.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you have a paper list, a doc on your computer or phone, an app (which one)?
I’m finding that my lists (usually a google doc so my husband can contribute) get too long and I lose the overview.
I also have different categories of names that I want to keep organized (girl, boy, honor names, names I like vs names my husband likes, etc). And, I want to have space for notes on a name, its meaning, or potential pros/cons.
I’m wondering whether there is a genius name organizing system out there that I need to know about!!
Usually I keep my combos written down on paper, and occasionally when when the pages get too messy and hard to read because of all the times I’ve erased and rewritten things and scribbled illegible notes I’ll copy the list down onto new sheets of paper.
I usually keep a separate document with single names that I’m trying to pair as well as room to play with combos. When I’m iffy on a combo I keep it on that sheet. When I decide to scrap it I just erase it, and when I decide to keep it it gets erased from that document and transferred to the list of combos.
When I’m copying my combos down onto new sheets, I do some sorting. I take any combos that no longer sparkle, separate the names, and put the names I want to find new combos for back onto the sheet of single names. It all sounds much more organized in theory than it is in practice for me!
Well, I have my main combination list, my actual list as I call it that have 25 of each gender. I try to only have ones I see myself using, or that I love, so lately its been moving around a lot. I keep almost all my old combos on a separate list that I call my gp, like and maybe use list.
When I’m creating names or find new ones, I make z new document on my computer or my blogger and write the ones i like and start making combinations with other names. Its not really neat at all, but it works. So I probably have a ton of those from over the years.
I’ve also done just a gender list when I was editing my girl list, where I took out the names I didnt like anymore so i could see if i liked the list more without the names. I looked at that for about a week before deciding if i liked it or not.
I also still have one of my very first name list and some times I look back at that, like when I was first starting over after my ex.
I’ll add a bit more to how I’m doing it right now. When I hear a name spontaneously, I usually write it down on my note app on my phone. I have name lists for people and lists for pets.
After a while, I’ll email myself these lists and then they go onto my google docs, where I will share them with my husband, who will probably never look at them. I have one list per pregnancy. When I’m pregnant again, I start a new list with names I like currently. Then I go back to my old lists to see if there are names on there that I still like, and transfer them. Sometimes, I will re-discover a name from my long list, although many of them may stay “gp” names or just dream names for good. (Or I may use them for future pets!)
I write names down like this (so each name takes up a bit of space):
The name
The name with my son’s name
The name with all our names
The name with potential middle names and last name (in parentheses the initials)
Then notes on meaning, origin, pros/cons.
That’s why I was thinking about maybe using index cards to sort my favorite names. I could write The Name on one side, and everything else on the other side. It helps me to see [name_m]Just[/name_m] The Name, which is why my lists have become unmanageable for me! I actually think I will do this for this child.
Otherwise, maybe an excel sheet might be good because you can add sheets for girl, boy, honor names etc. But I think the lines etc would distract from the names for me.
Listography.com. It’s a lot easier to break up then google drive. Plus an account is free.
If you have a spare binder or recipe divider that would also be great and is probably the easiest way to break everything up.
Mind maps. I use mindmup (the only thing about this is the saving button is no longer available for premium but if you are intending to put it on a doc or are willing to splurge a few dollars for premium then that’s not a worry) but any app or even microsoft word would work just as well.
Pp already mentioned it, but I use listography - you can create different lists of different categories and you can also get it to automatically alphabetise them which I’ve found helpful for organisation purposes
I keep a listography for my master lists, favourite current combos, a few “undecided” combos, current name crushes, and themed lists. As well as these lists, I also keep 7 extra lists on my notes app:
• an ongoing list of names that I like that I haven’t added to my listography yet. The next time I log in to listography, I then put the names in the corresponding lists and the list on my phone starts again.
• for some reason I have another favourite 2 middle combos list on my phone, but it’s identical to the one on my listography (?)
• I have a sort of “the maybes of maybe” list: it’s kind of like “undecided” list on my listography but with more combos, and it’s a lot messier.
• some themed lists I’ve been working on.
• GP names.
• family/honour names.
• combos from ~2015 when I first got seriously into names. I’m genuinely embarrassed by about 3/4 of them, but I keep them because it’s nice to see how my style has evolved.
I’ve tried Google docs because I use it to organise nearly everything else, but I prefer how listography is more compact due to the “view” feature, so lists aren’t 10 miles long when unopened. Also being able to decorate my page really adds a sense of personality and it helps me feel like my list is my own.
I also use listography, but I have a lot of lists on my notes on my iPad.
On listography I have
My favourites (singles) and favourite combos in alphabetical order.
Guilty pleasures (singles and combos also separate)
Names with nns I like
Names I’m crushing on/thinking about at the moment
Names I’m considering
[name_f]Pet[/name_f] names
Shortlists / names I’d actually use
Names with character connections
Sibsets I think sound good together
Names I’ve removed, mostly from my original list I had years ago (archived)
On my electronic notepads I have:
My favourites (including gps) in order of preference
Middle names/combos I’ve considered for names
My master list, which is where it all began haha. I don’t update it much now, but it’s pretty much any name I like, with meaning and origin included.
Names with good meanings
I also tend to type up my answers to threads on notes before I copy and send them, so I have a few paragraphs on how I see populaity, meaning, and the feel/personality I get from my favourites. Plus I have loads of miscellaneous combos I’ve thought of that aren’t organised in any way, I just wanted to remember/ record them, and thread replies I didn’t end up sending. I don’t use my laptop often, so although I do have a names folder, it pretty much never gets updated.
I use listography as well, though mine’s admittedly a bit of a mess at the moment because I’ve scrapped a lot of my combos and I don’t have the energy to make some new ones. I intend to rewrite a lot of it soon, with a tad more organisation. I tend to fix up combos and write new lists by hand first, however, simply because I prefer it (for example, my word names list was written by hand and extended across numerous, hard to find pages before I eventually typed it up in listography). I also use the notes on my phone to edit combos when I’m away from my laptop/notepad and want something to fiddle with.
I also use listography, which I find easy to operate and organise. I have master lists of all of the names I like, lists of combos in my signature, a list of floral names I like and lists of names for future pets. I also keep track of my posts in the ‘[name_u]Baby[/name_u] A [name_u]Day[/name_u]’ forum on listography.
I use the Notes on my phone as well if I’m unable to access listography for whatever reason and need to get something down before I forget. My Notes are full of random combo ideas and cool names that I heard while I was out.
I have a Random Name Picker app on my phone and I have a list for 100 boys and 100 girls. The app lets me pick a name at random and you can also choose to pick multiple names at a time which is quite fun for combos.
I know 100 is a lot and I quite often change some every now and then but I find it fun
i have a journal i write them in as well as a word document which i keep updated, my diary is more a way to see how my style has changed over time while the word doc is for my current list
