Family, Health, Media, Uncategorized, Words

What’s in a Name

52 Comments

Husband had to get prescription eye drops for after his cataract surgery. One option involved two different drops administered to the affected eye three times a day. Those drops could be obtained at our local pharmacy.  The other, more expensive, option involved getting one eye drop mixture from an East Coast company called Designer Drugs.  I thought that the company name was pretty clever and spoke volumes to its mission and activity. I wonder if it also leads to regular visits from the drug enforcement agency where it is located.

We ate in a Thai restaurant called Eat Thai Cafe after Husband’s surgery. That, too, has a clever name. Where are you going? Oh, we’re going to Eat Thai. (The food, by the way, was fabulous!)

What are some memorable names you have encountered? What are some product names you would like to see? How do you choose names for your pets?

 

 

52 thoughts on “What’s in a Name”

  1. We name our pets after some of our internet passwords.

    Other people’s memorable names don’t spring to mind, but I do remember a couple I suggested when I was involved in such things. Both coincidently involve pasta:
    For a line of gluten free pastas made from alternative flours: “lmpastas”
    For a line of frozen pasta entrees: “Pasta d’ Frosta”
    Neither of my suggestions were accepted.

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      2. Big companies are notoriously timid when it comes to naming their products. I think it has to do with the hierarchical nature of those companies—everyone is afraid of what the person above them will think. General Mills, for example, would never market a granola called Crapola unless they acquired the name as an already established brand.

        I’ve told this story before:
        Back in the ‘80s, we were given the task of naming a beer or a line of beers. At the time, the convention for beers was to give them a premium name, like “Golden” or “the Champagne of Beers”. I suggested that it seemed like a mismatch to me and maybe all those beer producers were barking up the wrong tree. Beer names should be fun and more colloquial. To illustrate my contention, I roughed out a couple of suggestions:
        -Blind Weasel
        -Belle of Bulgaria
        and
        -Vince (as in Van Gogh) B/eer (get it?), the beer for artists

        Naturally my suggestion fell dead and they went for something Premium and completely forgettable.

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    3. The beer suggestions would be rather tame in today’s market. Bling Pig IPA, Dead Guy Ale, Moose Drool, Bad Elf, Arrogant Bastard, Hoppy Ending, Hop Zombie, Yeastus Christ, Smooth Hoperator…all actual beers.

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  2. I went to college with Bunny Hunter (who was neither a hunter nor a rabbit).

    With some embarrassment, I’ll admit we named pets after Tolkien trilogy characters. Not very inventive. Our cat was Pippin. We called my springer Brandy, but her official name was Merry Brandybucks.

    Bill named pets after passwords. I chose passwords based on pet names.

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  3. Almost all of my pets have been named after famous starcrossed lovers, Scarlet Guinevere, Nimue, Tristan. We’ve had a couple who came with their names Baron,Rhiannon, Zorro. And then there was Thorin; we spent two days looking up a name that sounded right to us.

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    1. I’m glad to know what your naming strategies have been, vs, I’ve often wondered how you’ve come up with those names. I attributed at least some of them to a better memory of names of characters in literature than I have.

      Yesterday Hans and I received a Valentine’s Day card from our friend Ann. In it she referred to us as Romeo and Juliette, a reference I found rather puzzling. Decided not to look for a deeper meaning.

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      1. I think most people just think of Romeo and Juliet as true lovers and don’t look at the deeper meaning. Personally if they had lived I wouldn’t really hold out a lot of hope for their long-term happiness.

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  4. Daughter named our grey cat “Luna”. Our Tortie is Millie. She came to us with that name and it suits her. Other cats have been Albert, Peanut (She was a runt), and Ginger (He was orange). Dogs were Maggie and Casey.

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  5. From Lewis Carroll:

    ‘You are sad,’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘let me sing you a song to comfort you.’

    ‘Is it very long?’ Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.

    ‘It’s long,’ said the Knight, ‘but very, VERY beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it–either it brings the TEARS into their eyes, or else–’

    ‘Or else what?’ said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.

    ‘Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called “HADDOCKS’ EYES.”’

    ‘Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?’ Alice said, trying to feel interested.

    ‘No, you don’t understand,’ the Knight said, looking a little vexed. ‘That’s what the name is CALLED. The name really IS “THE AGED AGED MAN.”’

    ‘Then I ought to have said “That’s what the SONG is called”?’ Alice corrected herself.

    ‘No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The SONG is called “WAYS AND MEANS”: but that’s only what it’s CALLED, you know!’

    ‘Well, what IS the song, then?’ said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

    ‘I was coming to that,’ the Knight said. ‘The song really IS “A-SITTING ON A GATE”: and the tune’s my own invention.’

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        3. My first surgery is now scheduled for March 3rd, and the second one for March 17th. Can you believe it? There goes my annual St. Patrick’s Day dance. Hope Chris continues to improve.

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  6. I can’t decide which Lou and Peter Berryman song to put here.
    Dupsha Dove? or, Your States Name Here?

    When I had cows to name, it was either somehow related to the mom, or maybe a celestial event, (Remember the comet Hale Bopp’?) Or Eclipse or Moonglow or Sunspot. Aurora. or people, friends. They always enjoyed having calves named after them. But that worked best with girl calves because I didn’t keep the boy calves very long.
    Mary the mom had Marie the calf who had Antoinette.

    We had a hard time coming up for ‘Bailey’ for our latest dog. Finally just settled on it as better than nothing and she does sorta look like a Bailey.

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      1. These two are so much fun, though I’ll admit, her voice drives me crazy. Hard to believe that they have continued to perform together all of these years even though they are divorced.

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  7. When we lived with our friends on their farm in 1981, there was a cat called P.A. Dowser Underfoot. I finally asked what the P.A. was for… “Punk-Ass”.

    Trying to remember other “memorable” names… there are some gems if only they would surface.

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  9. Pet names in my life have been completely random, inspired by the moment. Bernie, who we got as an approximately four year old rescue in the spring of 2016, was named after Bernie Sanders. Bernie’s full name, Bernie the Underdog, because of his short legs. He’s on top of the world this morning, will have to wait and see how it works out. Martha, as you may remember, we struggled with. We tried out several names before settling on Martha after the role played by Elizabeth Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.”

    At the law firm I worked with a young attorney name Anna Karinko. Love that name, sounds like she should be a literary heroine of some sort.

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  11. The company I worked for ran a contest. The woman who won was named Garda Slorp. We had to investigate to make sure someone wasn’t pranking us, but nope, that was her real name. That raises the question: Was Garda born a Slorp or did she marry into it?

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    1. OT: Just read an article about now it’s hard to make southern-type biscuits in the north because we don’t have the soft wheat flours they can get in the South (ours is all hard wheat…). They mentioned White Lily flour – Renee, is that one of the kinds you manage to get?

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  14. So, tonight Husband feels well enough to cook, and can see better after his medicated eye drops. He is also putting in lubrication eye drops, and he is hopeful that things will just keep improving.

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  15. There was a project I worked on at a former job where we were compiling mailing lists. One of the entries we came across was a woman named Appleseed Jesusdaughter. There was also a Rhett Turnipseed. We thought perhaps they should get married; then she could be Appleseed Jesusdaughter Turnipseed.

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