NAMESAKE GUIDE
The Baby Name Checklist
Before you commit to a name, run it through this checklist. It takes about ten minutes per name, it has saved many parents from a decision they would have regretted, and it saves your progress as you go.
By Mike West, author of People Analytics for Dummies
Updated April 2026 · Interactive
A name that survives this checklist is not guaranteed to be the right name. But a name that fails it is almost certainly the wrong one. Use it on every finalist before you sign the birth certificate.
The checks are grouped into six categories. Some are obvious. Some are not. The ones most parents skip are in the future test and the digital test, which is exactly why we put them in the middle.
0 / 20 checks complete
The Basics
The Sound Test
The Future Test
The Meaning Test
The Digital Test
The Village Test
How to use this checklist
Run the checklist once for each name on your shortlist. The boxes save automatically in your browser, so you can come back and finish later. A name that ends with twenty checks is a finalist. A name with fewer than fifteen is not.
When two finalists both clear twenty checks, you have a real decision to make — and that is what the Namesake tournament is built for.
Run your shortlist through the tournament.
Start the Namesake Tournament →Free to begin. Find the one.