Because you can already `shuf -n 1 /usr/share/rig/fnames.idx` (or mnames for male ones) or `vis-menu /usr/share/rig/fnames.idx >> momlikednames.list`, and `cat {mom,dad}likednames.list | sort | uniq -d` to find names both parents like.

`shuf /usr/share/dict/words` was how I picked my HN username.

Why not... `head -c8 /dev/random | base64`

That's exactly what we did, albeit the final list was filtered by grandma as well, non digitally

Because everybody knows how trivial it is to curl/wget the list from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html, unzip it, etc.

The list is biased. Not only does it only have U.S. births, but also only those where the individual has a Social Security Number. I wonder how many the latter rules out.

For privacy, it also drops names that are rare, with fewer than 5 births in a given year.

(App is open source, so it’s easy to discover that’s where the names come from. See https://github.com/hamaluik/nomdebebe/blob/main/app/NAMES.md)

You joke, but I see this as "why is this implemented as software that potentially violates the security of my device?"

I trust the browser sandbox a million times more than I trust the phone app sandbox.

this is hilarious