Kinder - Find Baby Names

Opening the app for the first time

You install it, open it, and immediately you are asked to pick a gender — boy, girl, or don't know yet. Then the swiping starts. A name appears on the screen. You swipe right if you like it, left if you don't. That is the entire onboarding flow. No tutorial. No walkthrough. Just names and two directions. The app gives you one name set for free based on your location. For someone in the Netherlands, that means Dutch names first. For someone in the UK, it is UK-centric names. The problem is that the location detection is not always accurate. Several users in the UK reported seeing "weird names" that did not match their region at all. The app claims 18,000 names in the library, but the free set feels much smaller. You will run through it in about ten to fifteen minutes of steady swiping. Then you hit the paywall.

That is where the experience shifts. The app asks if you want to buy additional name sets for a small fee. The fee is around one dollar per set. Each set adds maybe fifty to a hundred names. Compared to a baby name book that costs twelve dollars for a hundred thousand names, the value proposition is weak. But the app is not trying to be a book. It is trying to be a game. The swipe mechanic is borrowed directly from Tinder. The developer admits that openly. He wanted to make name selection more fun than reading a book or browsing a website. For some couples, it works. They swipe separately, compare matches, and find a shortlist in an evening. For others, the problems start right there.

How partner connection and purchase sharing actually work together

The partner connection feature is the core selling point. You invite your partner via a code. They install the app, enter the code, and suddenly both of you are swiping on the same name pool. When both swipe right on the same name, it shows up as a match. That match goes into a shared shortlist. The idea is clean. The execution is messy. The connection code expires. If you do not connect within a certain window, you have to generate a new one. The app also requires your device time to be set to automatic. If you manually adjusted your time zone, the connection mechanism fails entirely. The developer explains this in the FAQ, but it is not something a new user would know to check.

Then there is the purchase sharing. If one partner buys an additional name set, that set is supposed to become available for the other partner as well. The app says it might not show up instantly, but it will sync. In practice, users report that the sync rarely works. One partner buys a set, the other partner never sees it. Or the set appears but the names are different. Or the app crashes after the purchase and neither partner can access the new names. The interaction between these two features — connection and purchase sharing — creates a fragile workflow. Both features depend on a stable sync mechanism. That mechanism fails often. When it fails, the whole purpose of the app collapses. You cannot collaborate if you cannot connect. You cannot share if the purchases do not sync. The app promises a joint decision-making tool, but delivers two independent swiping experiences that occasionally talk to each other.

What happens after you pay

This is where the real-world performance becomes visible. The app is ad-supported. You see banner ads between swipes. They are not intrusive, but they are there. The bigger issue is what happens after you make an in-app purchase. Multiple users have reported that the app crashes immediately after buying a name pack. The crash is not random. It is repeatable. You buy a set, the app closes, and when you reopen it, the new names are either missing or the app crashes again. One user described buying several packs and then being unable to open the app at all. Another said the app "immediately shuts down" after payment. The developer has released updates that mention "bug fixes and improvements," but the crash reports persist across multiple versions.

There is also the question of name quality. Users consistently say the name selection is limited and repetitive. One user saw only about 100 girl names before the app told them they had seen all of them. Another user said the "additional language" pack they paid for contained almost no names from that language. A user in Belgium complained that the Flemish name list was mostly Dutch names, not Belgian ones. The app claims 18,000 names, but the free set and even the paid sets seem to draw from a much smaller pool. The names also appear in a seemingly random order. Duplicates show up. Names from completely different cultures appear without explanation. The app does not show meanings or origins unless you flip the card — a feature added in version 3.3.0, but only for matches, not for all names.

What the latest update actually changed

Version 3.3.0 added the ability to swipe with up to four people. You can now add a co-parent or a grandparent to the naming process. That is a meaningful expansion. The update also added a flip card feature that shows a name's meaning, origin and pronunciation — but only after you tap on a match. You cannot see that information during the initial swipe. You have to match first, then dig into the details. The update also improved partner sync and fixed "many stability issues," according to the changelog. Yet the crash reports after purchase continue. The sync improvements have not resolved the connection code expiration problem. The app still requires automatic time settings. The save feature for likes and matches is still missing. The developer acknowledges this openly in the FAQ. He says they are working on it, but as of the latest version, switching phones still means losing all your progress. The app does not back up your swipes to a server. It does not save your shortlist anywhere except on your local device. That is a significant limitation for an app that is supposed to help couples make a major life decision.