Mindmapping baby names

General Name Discussion
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I’ve been having fun creating baby name themed mindmaps (while bored out of my mind at work, if we’re being honest).

I’ve ended up making one exploring my own name style, and actually found new dimensions that I hadn’t realised were important to me before (like wanting the full combo to be a little bit playful - too serious or stately just doesn’t quite do it for me.) It also felt good to properly evaluate what are actually my must haves vs. just a long list of preferences.

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I also made a mindmap of all the reasons why I love my son’s name. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I’ll spare you the mammoth mindmap of all the names on my list sorted out by why I like them - it’s a sprawling mess and I think the master list is better suited for places like listography rather than a mindmap. :sweat_smile: Still, I found it useful to organise my name list for the first time into some sort of categories - it’s been a stream-of-consciousness note on my phone until now (also I think my wife is a little bit freaked out by how long my long list actually is and I had to reassure her they aren’t all serious contenders that I need her opinion on. She is supportive of but somewhat confused by this hobby.)

I was thinking this could be useful for creating different combos as well, maybe to compare what you like about each of them…? I’ll probably play around with mindmapping combo ideas later too.

I’d love to hear any other ideas for baby name mindmaps or see yours, if anyone’s done one before or is inspired to create their own now! (I used an app on my phone but maybe hand drawing them would really get that creative flow going.)

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Ooh these are very cool! [name_u]Love[/name_u] how detailed they are and the way you know what you want from a combo!

I do think it would be interesting to try to make combos/analyse pre-made combos to see how many points they meet?

I’ve made various rough mind-maps, though nothing so in depth as yours. I’ve more just ‘grouped’ particular types of names together (by letter/style/vibe) etc

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This is super cool! I’ll have to try it out once I finish my current project of wrangling my list into an official written down/narrowed down format.

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@Greyblue I felt like my preferences were really nebulous and difficult to pin down until doing this exercise, it ended up being so helpful! That’s a really good idea - it’d be fun to see visually how many boxes different combos tick.

This is what I did with my long list of names and quickly realised that’s too many names for this method, haha (although not quickly enough and still finished the whole thing…) Could be great for exploring new favourites, or middle names/first names only, etc.!

@sammaegre Thank you! I feel you, it took a lot of train journeys to work and week nights to wrangle my own list into something more readable. I’d love to see any mindmaps you end up creating when you get the chance.

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I feel like mindmapping names could help me a lot, gotta try!

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