uuidBabyName

A python utility to turn a 36 hex-char UUID into a human-pronounceable baby name. Inspired by Darius "@tinysubversions" Kazemi: https://twitter.com/tinysubversions/status/336947808059936769

The pronounceability gag is stolen from hastebin, http://hastebin.com/, with their clever alternate-consonants-and-vowels trick.

The name-generation itself is fully deterministic, which is an interesting twist to me: a lot of the fun CPU-generated-text stuff I do depends on a random number generator to produce its fun outcomes (a la @fakespearean, http://twitter.com/fakespearean). I guess in this case I'm just outsourcing the RNG to the UUID part. But it's still cool that these names are kind of hiding inside the ugly 55ed2e23-bb45-4e25-abff-033a42927663 string -- given the UUID, we don't need to rely on (additional) luck in order to reveal the name "Wa Meka Rutoki-Boporez-Yu."

My favorite name yet: edf881dc-c811-4e71-b316-3b3ad48ffe71 actually means "Fito Gipupod."

How It Works

The UUIDs are strings of characters, each character being a hexidecimal digit (a hexit). Any pair of them taken together can define a number between 0 (00) and 255 (ff).

Take the 21 consonants and 5 (basic, non-y) vowels, and form all consonant-vowel ordered-pairs. Call these 105 pairings the space of syllables, and number them in order.

Each consecutive pair of hexits, together forming the number n, generates a new syllable by looking up which consonant-vowel pair is assigned that number n. This repeats for all the hexit pairs in the UUID, growing the baby name syllable by syllable.

If n is bigger than 105, there's a few twists I added to make things more interesting. White space might be added, or a dash, or I might insert a consonant and then add the white space/dash. The control flow over how to handle large n is all governed with some modulo arithmetic over n.

All this leads to into some cleanup: stripping off trailing whitespace or dashes, for example, and capitalizing the name-parts. A WARNING: This cleanup means two different UUIDs can yield the same baby name, so don't get cute and try using this for reals as a source of UUIDs.

Some Example Results

a017b48a-a9d5-4cf0-b581-17497cec392c => Goq Tem Gosoy Pilu

baa8816b-39a1-41c1-a2f9-7c4a106aa6f7 => Pi Ra Sufec

b3e00c6a-58d7-41c6-9781-952b1950d013 => Dic-wo Ram Lohavay Fu

d93bbd75-d2d6-4198-b281-47aa4ecd3339 => Pu Rah Sed To Nepi

14bb5472-5e3f-46da-904f-c7239d3f70a2 => Ga Vum Xuqosal Tu Ka Qok

5a8ac2ba-0e2b-45a1-88fa-081eff24555d => Xaq Duloru Coja Kewaxo

19c21ba7-3538-42b3-9eef-b16a0aa9604e => Hah Hi Nopere Da Yeto

4a0c12c7-a0ec-4a87-94cf-c19574188e3d => Sudifo Su Guv Qe

b6d489eb-541c-44e5-be30-ea872fe0e55c => Vuhoro Mof Mis Xi

366d0883-929d-4a61-aa1d-06307b7259e4 => Nu Co Suyid Hucemo Wux

37e3ac1a-4b5e-4830-a3d4-ca9b2e1feec0 => Pa Hetaxusimo Mejek

7298bbc2-ef43-47df-a88b-458bc8c2fc0f => Rise Ru Fa

b4b58d97-2215-495a-aba3-9aeb2a5ee00e => Jugesoxa Lixus Du

42fb576c-a210-4e1a-9470-1dc7500100cb => Re Wif Fetohec Hu Vabeba

3e2c1183-3092-4059-a1fa-53d852260769 => Qilufi Moz-quwu Voj-vikoci

33625c7c-5a19-47b9-bdfd-a5f601c9f79e => Neyoxiy Xahase Be

c99687d1-f051-4872-a8c6-a8536860122f => Vesim Vozuyefomi

cc3e44d9-1ec6-49b4-8c90-517d4306415a => Qiro Jam Soq Ve Riceraxa

b7b2b3b4-4f78-46f8-8b7b-c32a4f7a38f5 => Tut Saw Lituw Pe

2def608c-d5bb-4df3-93bc-69e0df894011 => Ma Yes Ti Qufi

fdfe49f3-f57d-4698-a5ca-a2f246c0749e => So Sah Saf

2e7c598e-5e94-48f0-a0ab-4e2368241d1b => Mey Wuv Xuc Sim Tokazukehuhi

7be47257-fb50-49eb-95ce-be6ecc30f77f => Wi Vaso Mo

6b81268e-7d07-4fde-8195-de3c9a00f10c => Kov Cituq Qak Ba Di

0daa5c10-899d-4b83-b43b-a47afccad78c => Dod Xife Ta Puw

2aad5517-f5b3-4388-b403-6fab64da86f6 => Li Wago Rin-Bo Zal

ccbfa308-2664-4f27-a40e-09e8975954cc => Cokozatukuw Ducuc Wuvut

b3589546-80d9-4d42-8b69-2940a6f87c97 => Wo Sad Tire Lequy

5dc12870-fd54-47ec-820d-ea7800131e37 => Xo Lak Vuseh-Dof Bafujapa

9a6a4d8b-534e-466d-afae-9dabe8ffb01c => Ti Votosa Ho

b55461e9-2dc1-4c20-af5d-770a0fcf7f41 => Vuyi Ma Teji Xo Dafa Ra

66e96439-b947-43c4-bf29-329e8b6e5b57 => Zi Zapi Serik-Lenap Xewi

fd1ee402-7d62-4a0e-be24-c78689b92b60 => Jax Bi Yosuduc Ke Loye

12336891-e5d3-46e8-a0b9-d4c0405c2e7a => Fonezu Sac Quximew

54ec94b8-60a9-46db-8099-ea958fc9245a => Vuh-Ye Sa Kexa