Shajid Hasan, Bangladeshi student who built the viral Batname Generator

  • April 4, 2022

Have you seen people write words in a dramatic fashion using the Batman Name Generator in the past month? Well, it turns out the creator of the name generator is a Bangladeshi University Student named Shajid Hasan.

Shajid, your Batman generator was incredibly popular. How are you feeling?

I’m feeling great! And yeah, it’s alright. Yeah, it kinda blew out of proportion. I had absolutely no clue that this would get this big.

When did you first realize that it went viral? What was your reaction?

Okay, so I shared the link in some Bangladeshi communities and people seemed to like it. I was happy and then I kind of forgot about it. The next evening, I was checking my emails and I saw someone wanted to contribute to the project in GitHub. GitHub is a place where you can host codes for a program/website/app. It was quite surprising, but I was absolutely blown away when I visited the GitHub page of this project and found out there were 97 stars!

Now, 97 stars is a big deal because a very small percentage of the common internet users are actually developers. So the fact that there were 97 stars meant a lot of people must have visited this website and 97 of them cared enough to visit its GitHub page and put a star there. 

Then, to investigate how it happened, I did a Google search and found a publisher called Collider covered this website. There were lots of posts about it on Twitter too. I literally gasped and showed everything I found to my friends and family. This was honestly a huge surprise because never in a million year would I think this would get this big. I was super happy. 

Screenrant covered your website and it’s a really amazing deal. How did you feel when you realized an international outlet recognized the generator? 

I was, of course, on top of the world when I spotted it. I casually searched for “The Batman” to take a look at the reviews of the film. I saw ScreenRant covered the website, and it was right there on the front page! I was triumphantly happy! Not long after, I also found publishers like CBR also posted about it. 

Does it bother you that not many not know you yet or are aware of the fact that you’re behind the generator? Honestly, a lot of people don’t know that it was created by a Bangladeshi.

Umm, I saw many people mad about it, that their compatriot didn’t get much credit for this. But frankly speaking, no it doesn’t bother me. I’m just happy that a lot of people had fun with it. I mean, if they mentioned my name somewhere obviously, I would love that but overall, it doesn’t matter a lot to me. If I’d care for credit, I would’ve put my name on the website. I left the GitHub link there just so someone can take a look at the source code of the app. 

What tools did you use to make the generator? Did you use any framework or did you make everything from scratch?

I don’t know how technical you need me to get here but basically I used JavaScript, HTML Canvas and a little bit of math. I used the Svelte framework!

Have you been programming before starting university or is this everything from university knowledge?

I just got into university this year. I’ve been programming for quite a while now. Doing little projects every now and then. I happen to have an Android app that has over a million downloads a year too! The app is called Likhon- Bangla on Photos.

What inspired you to create the Batman name generator? 

Oh, it’s just that some people were posting their names that looked like the Batman logo. And a lot of people were commenting on those posts, saying they wanted one for themselves too. 

I thought I could automate the whole process so I went ahead and built the web app. To help everyone get this logo in a jiffy.

Are you planning on working on something in the near future?

Oh yes! I have loads and loads of plans. I have a couple of apps, but I need some data and some marketing materials to launch them. I firmly believe these apps would benefit a lot of people in a very awesome way.

I mean I’m already working on a lot of stuff. 

How long have you been programming to be specific? 

Since 2014, I guess. Although I’ve developed interest in web development only recently. 

Do you have any message for us or people read this interview?

“Do what you love and magic will happen!”

The Front Page had a really nice time talking with Shajid and we hope to see many more initiatives by Bangladeshis in the future.

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