Your Name Game

Submission 9,013

About

"Your Name Game" refers to the conversation game, played either online or in person, in which a set of arbitrary facts or opinions about the player generates a new nickname. Popular examples include “Your Porno Name” (combine your middle name and the street you grew up on) and "Your NPR Name."

Origin

Online, the Your Name Game relates to Character Name Generators, the first of which launched on April 1st, 1983.

On February 1st, 1995, the website Name Nerds published a list of "Your (fill in the blank) name" games.^[3]

On April 13th, 2009, blogger Liana Maybe laughed Your NPR Name.

On March 31st, 2017, Twitter user @MissAHaddow tweeted a picture of the restaurant Firedog along with the caption “Find your hipster pop-up restaurant name by taking the way you'd least like to die, followed by the meat you'd like to try least.” The tweet received more than 2,900 retweets and 8,900 likes.^[1]

Spread

The post inspired a host of new Name Games, where the creation of a new Name Game became the object of the game. Within several days of @MissAHaddow's tweet, others began creating their own Your Name Games. On April 6th, Twitter published a moment, documenting the new versions of the game.^[2]