Name Shaper
What shape is your ?
Every sound pulls a little toward round or spiky. Type a name and we'll weigh each sound, draw the shape it makes and tell you whether it's a soft Bouba or a sharp Kiki.
Try a few:
Sound by sound
Tap a sound to see why it pulls that way.
In pure sound, your name would be
Name vs. name
Partners, pets, siblings, rivals. Put two names side by side and see what kind of pair they make.
Your shaped names
Saved on this device only, sorted from roundest to spikiest.
Names you shape will appear here.
How it works: each sound gets a weight based on the patterns sound-symbolism studies keep finding. Voiceless stops like k, t and p and bright vowels like i and ee pull toward kiki. Sonorants like m, l and n, the lip sound b, and rounded vowels like o and oo pull toward bouba. It's a playful model reading spelling, not a lab measurement. More on the model.