I like to play personal name games when I fall asleep or sometimes if I’m bored at work, just for myself in my own mind.
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[name_f]My[/name_f] most common:
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Themed sibsets: I’ll create a set of siblings or a few sets of cousins that have to meet a theme (every name has a t, every name is four letters, etc). [name_f]Pretty[/name_f] simple.
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Generation acrostics: I’ll pick a parent name and every child of that parent has to contain an assigned letter from that name (Ie. Alice’s first child has to have a name that starts with or contains the letter a, second is l, etc). And then I’ll pick a child and start over. Sometimes I’ll also create dates or little stories.
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Twin twenties: If I have my phone, sometimes I’ll go down a top 1000 list (nameberry or a national one) and for every 20 names on that list, I have to pick four names for a set of twins.
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I’ve done these types of games ever since I was a kid and I find it really helpful especially when I’m trying to sleep (it’s my version of counting sheep). If you have anything similar, I’d love to hear about it!
When I’m trying to distract myself (such as while getting my blood drawn[name_f][/name_f] or trying to hold a difficult workout pose ) I’ll choose a theme and try to come up with an established name that fits for each letter of the alphabet. For example, names ending in -ley, nature names, etc.
When I’m trying to fall asleep at night, I like to think of celebrity couples and what they might name their kids! Obviously it’s easier if they have some children already, but I’ve been amusing myself trying to come up with a name for a Kylie/Timothée baby, haha.
I learned about a ‘counting sheep’ game for falling asleep where you pick two topics, then go through the alphabet listing things for each topic, but alternating (e.g. if you picked trees and countries, it could go acer, Belgium, conifer, [name_m]Denmark[/name_m], elderberry…) And then you can reverse the topics (Andorra, bay, [name_f]Canada[/name_f], dogwood, England…). [name_f]So[/name_f], I do that with categories of names, like boys/girls, or nature names/colour names, or names from a particular tv show/names from a particular language, etc!
I do the usual “What I’d name my kids today,” a lot of nights when I’m struggling to sleep, but sometimes that branches out to “What I’d name my current favorite name’s siblings,” or “If I were in this specific scenario, I’d name my kids ___.” I also have a bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to fall back asleep…until I decide to go through and give all of my first names middles. My creativity proves to be extra strong in the middle of the night, but then I face the problem of forgetting what combos I’ve come up with
As a couple of others have said, my go-to consists of going through the alphabet and finding a name for each letter that fits a theme. Usually, the theme is my current favorites, names I can truly see myself using, names that I’d only use as middles, nature names, etc. I’ll do that for both boys and girls separately, most of the time! It’s one of my regular grounding techniques for when I get anxious and need to calm my mind.
ETA: I also love doing the one @Mary_Rose shared, but with characters! It’s so fun to imagine what others’ baby name lists might look like, fictional or not!
I literally have a notebook and pen by my bed just for names because I generally sleep badly, so if I’m wakeful I grab it and go and sit up with my notebook for a bit writing out combos and sibsets
my dad doesn’t understand why I need a small notebook and pencil on my nightstand, he keeps trying to make me put it on the desk so I have more space for my lamp
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I usually have one sibset that I’m “working on”. It lasts about a week/5 days. Usually starts with my latest name crush, then I give them siblings, then backstories, then families, interests, etc. I usually need something “long form” to work on (ie. making random sibsets and lists usually doesn’t work) so… my little families!
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I also think about whatever name combo I’m working on in my UC at the minute. (for a long time I put “filler” combos or combos just for the flow, so I’m trying to fix that).
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Also, whenever I’m working on a story I think about what my characters would name their kids (as mentioned by berries above)
) I’ll choose a theme and try to come up with an established name that fits for each letter of the alphabet. For example, names ending in -ley, nature names, etc.
