LONDON —Choosing a baby name has taken a new twist with the baby naming app Namey, offering parents the ability to poll family and friends about potential names for their baby.

Research (carried out February 2018) has revealed that parents crave endorsement from family and friends on their choice of baby name with 80% of parents saying it was ‘very important’ that family and friends liked their baby name choice.

Nearly the same number (73%) said they were likely to be influenced by family and friends’ preferences when choosing a baby name. Grandparents’ opinions on baby names were valued the most (after a partner’s) and work colleagues’ the least.

Namey is the only mobile baby naming app on the market that uses artificial intelligence and algorithmic matching to enable searches for boys’ or girls’ names based on origin, first name letter, characteristics, name meaning and other family members’ names.

Namey is also unique in its use of social collaboration, allowing users to save favorite baby names and then create polls to send to friends and family, inviting them to vote for the names they like the best.

Jamal Khan, founder and creator of Namey said: “Our research highlights how important it is for parents to have endorsement of their baby’s name by those closest to them. Namey’s polls offer a fun, collaborative and intelligent way for parents to find the perfect baby name.

“Choosing a name is always a hotly debated topic in the run-up to having a baby — it’s often hard to please everyone. Family and friends invariably want to join in and offer their own suggestions. Namey’s polls mean parents can involve friends and family members in the process — name suggestions can be polled and voted on in an open, transparent and objective way.”

“There’s a lot of pressure on parents to find the ‘right’ name for their baby — there are often many external factors and influencers that need to be considered. The Namey app uses artificial intelligence and smart algorithmic matching to help parents choose a name for their baby that reflects their own names, siblings’ names, heritage and preferred character traits.”

Launched last summer, Namey now has over 13,500 users worldwide and offers over 25,000 names, 12 different origins (English, American, Arabic, Chinese, European, Indian, Japanese, Muslim, Persian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu) and 75,000 name meanings / characteristics for users to search from.

The most popular characteristics currently searched for by users are, beautiful, beloved and brave.

Namey is available in free and premium versions on iOS and Android. Namey Lite (free to download) users have access to 9,500 names, can add up to 10 baby names to each poll and share up to three polls.

Namey Premium (£0.99 to download) users have access to 25,000 names, can add up to 15 baby names to each poll and share unlimited polls.

Polls can be sent to users’ phone contacts via WhatsApp, Message, emailed or posted on their Facebook, Twitter or preferred social media. — SG