I typed my name and my wife's name in at http://www.recordstore.com/wuname/wuname.pl to find we are both World-Class Programmah. Does this mean we are meant for each other in a reality where Donald Glover = Childish Gambino?

SO, a super-weird thing - my name (Madison Joyce) and my girlfriend's name (Fae MacArthur) come up as the same thing in both generators, and I thought it was weird but I dismissed it figuring it was just that both of our names had 12 letters total. But then I tried changing a single letter in either of our names, and the result was completely different names!

Maybe weird just soul mates and this thing is some kind of God, but that is weird.

Hmm. I did plug "Barack Obama" in the supposed original name generator.. It spit back - Barak Obama!

your Wu-Name is

Illegitimate Muslim Fundamentalist

Use it wisely, soldier.
.... Hmmm. So in the story we are led to believe that the "original" name generator didn't hard code ANY ANY AANNYY NAMES in their generators? Riiiiight. Psshh. If he can go back and hard code one name, he probably hard coded Donald Glover too. For the sake of journalism I tried Barack Obama in the "fake" generator.
And it said;
Barack Obama from this day forward
you will also be known as
The Preezy of the United Steezy
So obviously BOTH are messing with their code, and both were messing with TLDR. Why not contact Donald Glover and ask which exact name generator he used? That is the only way you'll ever know 100%. Boom.

I was pretty pumped when I got Childish Gambino as well!

I did also get, with various spellings and the two websites:

Budget Nudist
Ungrateful Ninja
Half-Cut Skeleton
Master Artist
Arrogant Overlord
Smilin’ Destroyer
Drunken Ambassador

So much for tautology: the WuName generator at record store dot com does indeed appear to have a more limited database than the Wu-Tang name generator that the former MS dude built. Like Abigail above I TOO am Childish Gambino, at least when I include my middle name in the mix. Admittedly the other names generated were pretty lame-o, so maybe the WuName generator just sticks with what works. In any event, I will prefer to be Drunken Dominator to Chocolaty Shatner any day

The way a name generator works is that it takes your input and manipulates it to get two different index values, one for the first name and one for the last name. Then it uses each to pick an item from a list of possible names. In order to write a name generator, you first need to figure out how to compute the correct index values, and then you need to determine the list of possible names and the correct order. If you alredy know some official names, and you believe you have the right calculation, you can plug the parts of the name into the appropriate spots in the list, and this will ensure that the official names get returned. But it will also ensure that you generate partially correct names; for example, if someone is similar to the RZA in having the same Wu Tang first name index, you'll be sure to generate "Prince", which must be their proper first name. For parts of the lists which aren't the index of any known Wu Tang member, you have to use your intuition to try to determine the correct name to put there, and you might be wrong about it. If you thought that a certain group of people who share the same first name had the first name "Energetic", but then you find out that one (and, by extension, the rest) has the first name "Childish", well, you'd correct the error in your list. And, if years later, someone asks if you're hard-coding names, you'd say "no", and chances are that you'll have forgotten you'd originally something else in that slot, until you checked the history, at which point you'd stop answering phone calls.

Listened to the show with my boy - Jason Addy - last night. Afterwards, we both typed our names into the recordstore generator (because the mess dude left a loooooong-ass pause before swearing he didn't hard code) and Jason's name came out: Childish Gambino. And I just read that Abigail above says she got that name too. Waaaaaa? So then I thought it was maybe a cute TLDR trick, but my name came out Greasy Choirboy. (FTR I like my mess generator name better: Quiet Knight). The mystery continues...

Listened to the show with my boy - Jason Addy - last night. Afterwards, we both typed our names into the recordstore generator (because the mess dude left a loooooong-ass pause before swearing he didn't hard code) and Jason's name came out: Childish Gambino. And I just read that Abigail above says she got that name too. Waaaaaa? So then I thought it was maybe a cute TLDR trick, but my name came out Greasy Choirboy. (FTR I like my mess generator name better: Quiet Knight). The mystery continues...

More evidence that the http://www.mess.be/inickgenwuname.php site hard-codes: try entering "Barack Obama".

OK, back to work on my Wu-Tang to government name translator...

I adored the production on this story, especially using 7th Chamber Part 2 as the theme! Made me chuckle! Fun story!

The Recordstore.com site gives me the name Childish Gambino also. That certainly doesn't solve the mystery, but it makes me like that generator less since it spits out the same Wu name for 2 very different actual names. Lazy.

3 thoughts:

1. Peter hesitates for quite a long time before saying "yes" to your direct questioning.

2. Another possible explanation: Glover lied about his origin story, and BOTH name generator sites hard-coded Childish Gambino post-hoc.

3. Seems like tl;dr should track down a random guy somewhere who also happens to be named Donald Glover, to test this Tautology Theory. If there's truly a higher power* intervening so that the comedian/rapper Donald Glover always gets Childish Gambino, then presumably this higher power would NEVER allow the layman Donald Glover that you find in Toledo or wherever to get the same Wu Tang name. This test is immune to hard-coding by either generator site. QED.

*clearly this higher power is Dirt McGirt, may he R.I.P.