Baby Name Picker

This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have prepared to help you is right here.

This project outline is not like the artificial, tidy little problems you are spoon-fed in school, when all the facts you need are included, nothing extraneous is mentioned, the answer is fully specified, along with hints to nudge you toward a single expected canonical solution. This project is much more like the real world of messy problems where it is up to you to fully the define the end point, or a series of ever more difficult versions of this project and research the information yourself to solve them.

Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; or give you any additional materials. I have too many other projects of my own.

Though I am a programmer by profession, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavour.

The purpose of this Applet is to help a couple settle on a name for a newborn or soon-to-be-born child. Mom and dad sit at separate computers, each attached either to a LAN (Local Area Network) or to a webserver on the Internet. The program contains a list of thousands of possible male and female baby names.

You might get lists of names from books, baby name sites on the web, the bible, lists of famous people, lists of people (e.g. students, doctors, politicians). Try to get some international names in there to, not just ones from England. Sort the list with popular names at the top.

Allow the user a three way filter: name must appear in Old Testament, name must not appear in Old Testament, does not matter. Do the same for New Testament, Qur’an etc. Could do the same with British, German, French, Dutch, etc. origins. You could add a filter for war-associated.

In the first cut, mom and dad each go over the list of either male or female names, and mark each name as either red for no-way, green for possible or yellow for acceptable under duress. As mom and dad work, the computer creates a list of green names that mom and dad have in common. If there are none, it adds in the yellow names. Each can see what the other is doing.

Then mom and dad each order the names with their favourites at the top. They use a mouse to drag and drop. They can also move by typing a number to send a name to that slot.

The program computes the rank of each name by adding together which slot it appears in on mom’s and dad’s list. It then continuously displays a list of the highest ranking (lowest number) names so both mom and dad can see it and focus on getting those names ranked first.

The program could also be used my mother and grandmother, teenage girl friends fantasising about married life with some cute boy, or possibly even as a psychological test of compatibility.

Don’t include squirrelly spellings of common names in the lists. On lookup of a person with that name, Google will correct the spelling and hence never find anything.

I think it is improper to saddle child with a name that presumes their choice of religion. People should have an interim name as a baby and as a coming of age ceremony, they could choose a new name that reflectes their choice of religion, life philosophy or interests. This should be the norm and sanctioned by society. As it is, it is considered suspect, even criminal. I am pleased that my nickname Roedy accidentally turned out to be an old Dutch name. I am happy to align myself with the forward-thinking environmentally-aware Dutch.

Baby Name Database

You need a database of baby names to get started. You might comb the net for public domain databases. You might augment yours with an Applet where the public is solicited to provide information. You want to track such things as:

	This page is posted on the web at:	http://mindprod.com/project/babyname.html
	Optional Replicator mirror of mindprod.com on local hard disk J:	J:\mindprod\project\babyname.html
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