The Spreadsheet Spotlight is a periodic series where I provide knowledge of a spreadsheet I use, why it's valuable, and how you can leverage it too. Reading the Spreadsheets and You article first will help you get the most of this Spreadsheet Spotlight post and all the previous ones found here.
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What fact do you tell people which gets more puzzled, curious, shocked, or delighted looks than a toddler running around without pants?
For me, the “You gotta be kidding!” grins and furrowed eyebrows are in full force when I mention how my wife Melinda and I named our two sons.
Yes. Seriously. We named Grant and Clark with a custom baby names spreadsheet.
The most astounding fact though? Despite my certified spreadsheet fanatic status, it was Melinda that originally suggested we name our first son Grant with a spreadsheet.
And it was Melinda that created “Baby Names Scoring Spreadsheet 1.0” (which I then modified to version 2.0 for our second son, Clark).
I tell you what though: picking your kid's name calmly and enjoyably with a spreadsheet beats the pants off of the frustration and hurt feelings when floating names by each other and having them shot down with a look or a “Um… how about no.”
Filtering baby names with enough science to avoid the emotionally charged “war-o'-the-name” game is schuper schweet. And leaving room for enough creativity and outside input is not only fun, but might be your best way to name a tiny little dude or dudette.
Because everyone has the most magical and kind-hearted opinions on what to name a baby… until the daggers come out when you dismiss (or diss) someone's name. It would be nice to save all the drama by telling someone, “Sorry, our baby names spreadsheet didn't rank your wonderful suggestion first,” right?
You'll want this latest Spreadsheet Spotlight if you:
- Had, have, or may have a rift over a baby's name with well-meaning (but vengeful) Aunt Susie, your considerate (but easily-slighted) brother Kevin, or – heaven forbid – your baby's mama or papa.
- Want to prevent or end the baby naming wars that rage across the world every day.
- Enjoy picking baby names that everyone will love.
Let's equip you to masterfully name your future children or uncover the winning contender for your best friend's kid starting… now!
Why the Baby Names Spreadsheet Rocks
Have you ever tried to come up with your own baby naming formula? I have, and it's a pain in the butt.
Melinda and I spent hours and hours reading resources and determining what name attributes should be scored.
Easy spelling? Yep (especially with a doozy of a last name like Zaslofsky). Same name as a current movie or sports star? Well, not intentionally.
There are countless name attributes in countless books and websites, but we decided on our nine most important attributes for simplicity's sake.
You can spend heaps of time doing the research, weighting each attribute, figuring out how to present the results concisely… or you can use my baby names spreadsheet template and personalize it.
Easy call, eh?
Baby Names Spreadsheet Purpose
I felt like I needed to elaborate on previous home/auto maintenance and home energy audit spreadsheets. But this Spreadsheet Spotlight is obvious: every person needs a name.
So the purpose of this baby names spreadsheet is simple: to name a kid as objectively and efficiently as possible without the risk of an emotional bomb going off (and the ugly relationship collateral damage that follows).
(Bonus points for using this spreadsheet to name your dog, cat, horse, car, or plants.)
Access the Sample Here
How to Use It
This is where the time savings and magic happens.
Let's walk through using the baby names spreadsheet while still allowing flexibility for your unique situation.
Step-By-Step
1. Look at the “Example” tab. See how the data is supposed to be entered and it will help a bunch.
2. Filter potential names down to twenty (or less). Having more than twenty potential names takes too much time and gets unwieldy quick. Trust me. I know from personal experience and many conversations with other parents.
Pro Tip: I recommend pre-filtering your baby names with a tool designed for the task. My favorite is The Baby Name Wizard since it lets me set filters for the length or number of syllables and can easily exclude names based on certain characteristics (e.g., Biblical or contemporary). I also find Nymbler and the U.S. Social Security Administration baby names page to be useful.
3. Enter your pre-filtered list of names. The names go into the blue cell next to the “Name X” label (e.g., “Name 1”).
4. Plug a name into the “Who Picked It” field. Mama and/or papa probably pre-filtered the baby names, but your lovely grandma or someone random may have a strong contender too. Using the “Who Picked It” field will help you remember who came up with a crazy awesome name so that they can feel disappointed honored about how it was ranked.
5. (Optional) Use the “Link to History” field. If a name's historical context is as important to you as it was to me, put a website link in this field from a place like Behind the Name.
6. Determine which name attributes to score. My baby names template comes with nine attributes to score such as popularity or pronunciation. But you may want more attributes – like a name that rhymes with “spreadsheet” – or less attributes. Add, modify, and delete all you like.
7. Decide how to weight each attribute. Melinda and I had equal weighting for all nine name attributes and we scored each one from 1-3. Overly simple for you? Then change the maximum number of points for each attribute to weight them according to your preference.
Note: make sure that mama and papa agree whether (for example) a popular name is desirable or undesirable. You don't want mama scoring a “10” for the popularity because it is popular while papa scores it a “10” because it isn't popular. I suggest embedding a comment behind each attribute with the specific scoring range or a separate tab with a brief explanation for the scoring system. For example, the spelling attribute score could be a one if the name is hard, two for moderate, and three for easy.
8. Score each attribute for each name. Have mama, papa, or any other interested party score each attribute for each name in the spreadsheet. The point total for each name – and the summary section for all the names – automatically update with simple formulas.
Bada-bing, bada-boom! That's it.
Download the Full Version Now
It includes all nine naming attributes, pre-populated space for up to twenty names, and everything else all purdied up and ready to be customized.
You'll have instant access to the other Spreadsheet Spotlight resources, 1/2 of my popular book, Experience Curating, and more grooviness.
Click Here to Get the Full Spreadsheet
Calling All Spreadsheets!
So how does it feel to take the emotional baggage out of naming a baby? Are you feeling like a Fancy Pants because you've saved massive amounts of time?
I'd love to hear how you would improve this already rockin' baby names spreadsheet, so let's hear it!
(Side note: I'd love to geek out on spreadsheets with you and see your completed ones. So share them with me whenever and however you want.)
Now start naming some babies (or dogs, cats, horses, and cars)!
Just please stay away from Winston and Bruce. I love those names and plan to have future dogs rockin' them (since I'm done with the whole having kids thing).
Now over to you!
Do you plan to use this spreadsheet for babies, animals, or your favorite inanimate object? Perhaps you have a better way of naming things? Maybe you have an amazing spreadsheet in your secret stash that could help everyone else? Leave a comment and let's get our spreadsheet on!
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Photo Credit: Visualogist, Pro-Zak, nickwheeleroz
This is great! I could totally modify this to use for any kind of decision with a partner. Doesn’t necessarily have to be names. I want to just follow you around and collect all the scraps of your hard work. Spreadsheets like this one… even though you made it for yourself… is just super useful!
Gracias, Ethan. Most of the spreadsheets I make take little effort, but it’s the methodology behind them that’s just as – if not more – valuable. Hopefully people are linking the template to the discipline behind it and dig both.
Please let us know if you name something with this spreadsheet or use it for a non-naming purpose. I’m not sure what you have in mind, but I am sure it’s rad!
Well, I don’t have a specific use in mind, however i COULD have used it during the tiny house construction for say… choosing paint colors with Ann!
Now you got me running through what attributes and scoring system I’d use to pick paint colors. Geez, I’m hopeless.
Interesting to hear that Melinda suggested this. Is she a spreadsheet aficionado herself, or is your enthusiasm catching?
Anyone that works in a large company for more than a few months is forced to (or lucky enough) to know their way around Excel. That would be Melinda since she has over a decade’s worth of Excel experience in working at Best Buy corporate. And although she’s not a certified spreadsheet fanatic like me, she does appreciate the utility of them. Besides, you know what they say is the best way to a man’s heart, right?
Spreadsheets (at least this man).
You guys are so orderly! I’m impressed. I find it hard to be consistent with numerical rating systems unless I make the criteria for each number explicit. Which I suppose could be done here 🙂
I have no kids and don’t plan to get any more pets for awhile. I do name inanimate things, though. I tend to just stick a “-y” or “-ie” sound on the end (which is how one of my siblings used to name her stuffed animals as a child). So, our blue car is…Bluie 🙂 Plants tend to be alliterative: Barry the basil plant, as a hypothetical example. But I can see how children (and even pets) might need a bit more forethought!
I love the simplicity behind your naming conventions, Erin. Silvery and Midnight Bluie at our house do too. 🙂
Ha! I fully endorse spreadsheets to help separate emotional baggage from financial assessments, but baby names? Ha!
Honestly dude, baby name decisions are purely emotional, but locating where your emotions are strongest, that’s where I think you spreadsheet rocks.
What if certain criteria are always low for one and not the other? What if one hates the historical meaning and the other loves it. That’s a good thing to know.
The coolest part of your spreadsheet is finding out which names you both agree are high on the list. You could easily find that while there are some that are heavy favorites of only one parent, a few are favorites of both. That’s really helpful. Makes me think this would apply to healthcare reform.
You nailed one of the biggest benefits of the spreadsheet in your comment: being able to see – side-by-side – which names the decision-makers are close on, worlds away on, and in perfect alignment on. That applies both at the individual naming attribute level and the overall score level. I thought that was a pretty groovy thing too and I’m glad you caught it.
P.S. Did you just suggest I could improve the trillion dollar healthcare industry? Because if you did, I’d like a formal testimonial recommending my spreadsheet prowess as a potential driving force in the changing face of Western medicine. 🙂
I was a little skeptical about this until I saw the sample spreadsheet. Like Ethan mentioned in his comment, it’s especially useful when you’re naming something with a partner. I wish you wrote this post a couple of weeks ago. I just named a side business and bought a domain. I had a hard time with deciding for weeks before I did that, though.
I should have called that out more clearly, Denise, in that this is specifically designed to be used for decisions between two or more people. It would still be useful for a solo naming act though (which are often harder tasks than naming something with others… why is that??).
You can blame the timing in publishing this on when Melinda and I got pregnant with Clark. I knew I wanted to do this Spreadsheet Spotlight for a long time, but I thought it would be fun to run it shortly after Clark was born. That way I could refer to “Clark” and “Baby Names spreadsheet v2.0” in the post instead of “Kid #2” and “the not as awesome original spreadsheet that got seriously souped up.” I hope you love the name you came up with for your side business and I hope to hear all about it soon!
Oh, yeah. Kid-naming is intense business. My wife absolutely loves to delve deep into name meanings and possible connections between family members and all of that stuff. It was tricky going sometimes to find the right balance in responding to those conversations.
A spreadsheet would have been very helpful to help diffuse.
My wife ended up creating a final list for me of first and middle name combinations so I could see how they all came together, and we discussed them from there.
There are LOTS of mommy blogs that would benefit from a resource like this. You should definitely hit them up.
Good call on sharing this with mama/papa bloggers and podcasters. I’m much better at creating resources than I am spreading the word about them, but I’ll be spending an hour next week engaging some people whose communities would benefit from this.
By the way, familial significance is a great name attribute to use as part of the scoring system. Melinda and I used it for our son’s middle names, but it didn’t play into the equation for the much trickier first name.
Joel,
Love this idea of the spreadsheet spotlights.
This post made me stumble on to the home repair one you have, it looks like a great resource.
Bookmarked your page and have started listening to some of your podcast (though podcast episodes are piling up, you know how that goes).
Keep up the inspiring work.
Thanks for the kudos, Andrew. Don’t worry about working your way through the podcast episodes though. I know exactly how you feel about having some groovy things to listen to that are just sitting there… waiting to be cracked open like a stack of books you want to plow through.
I’ll keep doin’ what I’m doin’ and I hope you’ll keep letting us know what you dig, what you don’t, and what you need.
I put a couple of baby name spreadsheets on Google Docs a few years ago. This blog post includes links to the spreadsheets and some instructions:
http://www.nancy.cc/2011/07/18/need-to-choose-a-baby-name-try-these/
And one of my blog readers created this web-based weighted decision matrix, which can also be used for names (or anything else, really):
Hope these are useful!
-Nancy
Don’t tell your blog reader named Laura, but I like your spreadsheet-based approach a lot better, Nancy. 🙂 Thanks for sharing this grooviness with us.
I just downloaded the Google Doc Sheet and followed the instructions from your blog post. It’s pretty slick. Perhaps I’ll have enough baby naming spreadsheets from various places and people to do a round-up post on them. Because I know I don’t have the market cornered here (not that I would want to).
What are some of your other favorite spreadsheets, Nancy? Either your own or created by others?
Good question! I’ve come across a few good ones, but I don’t always remember to bookmark them.
Here’s one — a book marketing spreadsheet by Jenny Blake — that I remembered to save:
https://drive.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0Aqko7Xi-nxN1dFdZR0FaYmhfVTBKNjJfNkZVLTBiWFE&mode=public#
Haven’t had to use it yet, but I’m saving it just in case. 🙂
Now that’s a good spreadsheet! I wish I would have had it before basically being done publishing my book. But the marketing related items are really good, and I’m planning to use a couple tactics. Great share, Nancy!