202. The naming game
On the labels we use for things, and the worth those give them.
In which Rebecca finds value in what she chooses to call things, and wonders whether she’s indulging in nonsensical nomenclature.
Dear Reader,
I grew up addressing people by name because I like to forge relationships. On the phone this morning – one which was filled with the life admin I needed to do rather than the stuff I wanted to be doing – I took great care to write down what the call centre employees I spoke to were called so that I could build rapport by addressing them by their chosen appellation.
Yet I wonder if I’m an oddball for wanting first-name engagement with inanimate objects?
🚲 Speedy
Right from the bike which had grown too small for us, certain features of our childhood had names. We’d take it in turns to ride Speedy, a tiny two-wheeler in burnt orange with handlebars so low we’d have to lean, our knees up to our ears, racing circuit after circuit on the path around the house. The one not riding would be in charge of the stopwatch, because Speedy was, well, speedy.
It doesn’t take too much of a leap to turn an item’s main characteristic – or indeed its antithesis – into a name for it. That orange bicycle shared its name with our friend’s tortoise, which had been dubbed with it before the family realised quite how quick the thing actually was on its scaly feet. Their Speedy liked to run off and hide in corners, and his preference for concealing himself became, I think, much less fun once he’d had a fluorescent stripe stuck to his shell to reveal exactly which hidey-hole he’d taken refuge in once a light was flashed in its direction.
🟡 Bumble, 🩵 Posy, 🌶️ Pepper, 💚 Colgate
The cars I’ve owned, too, have always had names.
Bumble was a bright yellow 1979 Mini, who (yes, who) saw many adventures when my brother and I were learning to drive in him. I’d sit in the back, behind Mum in the front passenger seat, because the driver’s seat had to be all the way back in order to accommodate my brother’s 6’4” frame. He’d always take Cooksbridge level crossing too fast on purpose, and would look in his rear view mirror as my head banged against the roof when the car juddered over the railway tracks. Happy days!
And also: ouch. 🤕
Posy, my beautiful 1963 Morris Minor, was named for the sequence of letters on her numberplate, and Pepper for her zingy red colour. Colgate, my current set of wheels, is a lovely mint green, which is why she bears the name of a toothpaste brand.
Having finally said goodbye to their Austin Montego – Monty, of course – after teens of years, Dad purchased a secondhand Daimler with heated seats and perfectly varnished walnut-veneered dashboard. She was absolutely beautiful and oh boy she knew it and deserved a name worthy of her features. The Duchess accompanied my parents on many adventures, and even delivered me to university in Germany!
After The Duchess had retired, my parents’ subsequent cars were named after adventurers and explorers. I renamed Darwin, their Landrover, The Sandpit after a month-long trip to the Hebrides where his – and our – days were filled with off-road trips to remote white-sand beaches, our walking boots depositing solid footprints of beach debris in every footwell.
Their current car is Fitzroy. British meteorologist and naval officer Robert Fitzroy had commanded The Beagle on its 1830s voyage around the world, famously with Charles Darwin aboard.
We followed the explorer pattern ourselves when we named our campervan. This, dear Reader, is Shackleton:
Given that he had been named after the explorer whose ship Endurance had famously become stuck in Antarctic ice, I felt that the auspices for the van didn’t look terribly rosy. Still, the name suits him.
Our little fibreglass Topper sailing dinghy, Jane, had its own Antarctic connection. My family shares its surname with polar explorer Captain James Weddell, who in 1822 had set off to the Southern Ocean with brig Jane and cutter Beaufoy. The leaks suffered by Weddell’s Jane on a later trip had caused her to founder in the Azores; something I am glad I didn’t know about in my dinghy-sailing days.
Note: In a delightful circular reference, the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance was found three years ago – on the hundredth anniversary of Shackleton’s burial, in fact – in the Weddell Sea!
Giving names to cars or boats isn’t simply an affectation. Referring to an inanimate object in this way can assign it social value to give it greater prominence in our lives. I have more of a relationship with ‘Colgate’ than I would have with ‘the car’; calling her by her name and yes, even addressing her by it when I’m driving, is important to me. Reader, I look after her and she looks after me. We’re members of the same team, and definitely on first-name terms.
Naming things is convenient, too, when it comes to referring to them. Jim has three bright-orange external hard drives, all for different purposes. ‘Which one do you want?’ I’ll reply when he asks me to pass him one of them. ‘Tango, Jaffa or Fanta?’
🟧 🟧 🟧
For now – and temporarily, I’m sure – I’m using one of two walking aids whenever I leave the house; one is a typical bent-handled wooden stick, and the other is a ‘shooting stick’ with two handles and a sling which can be unfolded and opened out into a seat for when I want to stop and sit.
‘Who do you want, Whizz or Dash?’ Jim will ask. ‘Oh, I’ll take Whizz today, thanks,’ I’ll reply, and Jim knows exactly which stick to hand to me at the door.
🌱🥑 Stony Tony
We’ve anthropomorphised our pet avocado plant to the extent that he not only has a two-part name – Stony Tony – but also a label marking him out as our favourite child. Childish, perhaps, but Reader, if you knew the lifelong struggle I’ve had to keep any plant alive, well, let’s just say that regarding Stony Tony in these terms means that a longer life for him is far likelier than otherwise. 😉
🛟 Life-saving equipment needs a name too
For the last nearly-39 years I’ve had relationships with a whole succession of diabetes-management equipment. The reader for my flash glucose monitor is my bipper, and since our visit to Bletchley Park a couple of years ago the phone-like gadget which drives my insulin patch pump has answered to the name of Alan, after codebreaker mathematician Alan Turing.
In Alan’s case – and Stony Tony’s – inanimate objects have human names, but animals – and people, sometimes! – often have names attached to them which aren’t necessarily ‘human’.
Such non-name names can define a relationship, a resemblance, or a job. Jim, my photographer husband, is known as Snaps, Mr Snaps or Jimmy the Snaps by pretty much everyone in the village, and I’m proud to be Mrs Snaps by default.
A childhood friend of mine – an attention-seeking Southdown ram lamb called Radar – would appear whenever he heard the catch on the back door. My parents had named him after Walter ‘Radar’ O’Reilly, a character in *M*A*S*H*, who had:
‘….acquired his nickname because he was seemingly endowed with ESP, appearing at his CO’s side before being called, anticipating his needs and even finishing his sentences. He also had super-human hearing, as he was able to hear incoming helicopters before anyone else could.’
Mum has always made absolutely delicious shortcrust pastry. We used to call it concrete, but it was anything but: a richly perfect amalgam of wholemeal flour and a deliciously disproportionate volume of shortening used for everything from apple pies to picnic pasties. It was named not for the consistency of the end result, but because it was made in the concrete mixer – the Kenwood Chef food mixer which had been a wedding present to my parents in the early 70s.
Giving names to objects raises them in our estimations and allows us to build relationships with them. So what if the object is a fluffy elephant (Pinky), the rusty blue rotavator Dad uses for turning over the vegetable garden (Terrence), a pet (Bird) or a car (Bonzo)? Whatever it is used to label, a name will give it both context and significance.
Most of all, names give value to things. And that, dear Reader, is always worthwhile.
Love,
Rebecca
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I think of all the posts you've written, this one is my absolute favourite. I love the idea of naming things. The cottage here has always been called (uninspiringly) House, by me. But I have real conversations with it and it shares its humble existence with me. Our matchbox townhouse is called Balfour because that's the street it lives in. The beach we swim at is actually officially called Millington's Beach after my grandfather (long story) but we always call it the Front Beach, because back in the day, it was in the front of my grandparents' house.
Mum's Mini was always the Mini-Car, my first car was a Renault - Rene! And of course our dogs - so many names but its the nicknames I love. Mini Moocher, HazzBazz, Tagalot, Fang, HazzleBazzle, Feofifofum, Tararaboomdeay and so forth and naturally the dogs knew these other names!
Mum's walker (bright red with shiny black wheels) is called Lifesaver when I've had to use it.
I could go on but that'll do for starters.
I LOVE the names for Jim's hard drives!!!
Hope you're on the mend. XXXX
I just named my new vacuum cleaner 'Sucky'. Don't judge me.