Newspaper names: bizarre and boring

In My Humble Opinion
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I’ve been thinking about names of newspapers and how they tend to fall into a few different categories.

First there are those which make obvious record to being a newspaper, journal or record: The Wall Street Journal, (Glasgow) Daily Record, New York Times, USA Today, (Edinburgh/Manchester) Evening News, Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

Some are named for their ownership, to signify their freedom and honesty, such as: West Highland Free Press, (London) Independent, and on the other hand there are various Advertisers, like the Grimsby Independent and Advertiser which makes you wonder how it can be both at the same time.

Then there are those named for methods of communication, I assume to signify their timeliness and reporting from far afield: (London) Daily Telegraph, (London) Daily Express, (London) Daily Mail, Washington Post, Dundee Courier. More old-fashioned are the International Herald Tribune, and named for the Roman messenger of the gods, The San Jose Mercury News.

After that names seem to get more tenuous. The next class is astronomical: (London) Sun and Chicago Sun-Times, which I assume is meant to signify that they shine light, are big, and come out every day. Related to this must be the (London) Star. The Boston Globe maybe signifies it reports worldwide. Clark Kent worked for the Daily Planet, but I don’t know any real-world newspapers called the Planet.

Another category is simply to name your newspaper after the region it is in: the Scotsman, the Iowan, etc, or the urban free-sheet Metro which is published in a number of European cities.

After that you have a bit of a miscellany. Most of the other names I know concern looking or reflection: (London) Mirror, Sunderland Echo, the somewhat voyeuristic (London) Observer, the even more invasive Huddersfield Daily Examiner and after a hundred-eyed mythical creature the Bradford Telegraph and Argus.

The remainder don’t fit into any boxes. The Guardian (formerly of Manchester now London) and the (London) Evening Standard perhaps set themselves up as campaigners, respectively as a protector and a rallying-point (assuming they mean flag, rather than measure, but the pun may be intended).

So in summary we have the: Journal, Record, Times, Today, News, Chronicle, Free Press, Independent, Advertiser, Telegraph, Express, Mail, Post, Herald, Tribune, Courier, Mercury, Sun, Star, Globe, Metro, Mirror, Observer, Examiner, Echo, Argus, Guardian, Standard.

Finally to the question: are there any newspapers with other interesting names like the Argus? Are there any categories I have missed? It would be interesting to know where the names come from as well. Also, I’m not entirely sure why so many newspapers are called the Times: did they publish a list of times at some point, or is it more general, as in “the life and times”, “the times we live in”?

(I am mainly interested in English-language titles, since the French seem to have much cooler names like Figaro and Liberation, but feel free to share.)

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url=“http://www.timespicayune.com/”]The New Orleans Times-Picayune immediately comes to mind. “Picayune” usually means “trivial,” BTW

And then there’s the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Supposedly. when the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press published a combined edition, it was called the Detroit News-Free Press for a time, until someone pointed out that the last thing people wanted was a news-free paper.

There’s also Newsday – no actual city name, though in New York it’s billed as New York Newsday.

In my home town, the weekly newspaper is the “Traveler-Watchman.”

You forgot “Gazette,” BTW.

Actually, Kent started out at the Daily Globe.

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I work in the newspaper advertising agency, so I deal with about 100 newspaper names a day and I can tell you that the VAST majority of them have boring names. Let’s see if I can come up with some more interesting ones …

There’s Creative Loafing. I can’t remember exactly where that is out of, I think it’s in the South.

The Seattle Intelligencer, which is having some troubles with the Hearst corporation right now.

They still do bill it as the Detroit News & Free Press to advertisers. I guess the “&” really makes a difference, eh? :wink:

There are also some newspaper regulars that weren’t mentioned above:

Register (Orange County Register)
Inquirer (Philadelphia Inquirer)

And then a lot of combinations “News Independent”, “Globe Herald”, “Press Argus”, and so on.

As someone who has to deal with these all the time, you just start to wish someone would make up some new words already.

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How about Ireland’s Leinster Nationalist. No point in beating about the bush where one’s political allegiances lie, is there?

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Some interesting newspaper names from the state of Florida:

Cedar Key Beacon
Destin Log
Fernandina Beach News Leader
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Golden Gate Gazette
The Grapefruit (political)
Jupiter Courier
Key West Citizen
Marco Island Eagle
Marathon Keynoter
Ocala Star-Banner
Tallahassee Democrat

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Sacramento Bee

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Any state can come with with a list like that. Here’s New York:

Citizen [Auburn]
Community Trader [Clifton Springs]
CoopersTown Crier [Cooperstown]
Daily Sentinel [Rome]
The Daily Star [Oneonta]
Dan’s Papers [Bridgehamptom]
Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester]
Farmingdale Observer [Farmingdale]
Floral Park Dispatch [Floral Park]
Forward [New York]
Genesee Country Express [Dansville]
Glen Cove Record-Pilot [Glen Cove]
The Independent [Hillsdale]
The Lake and Valley Clarion [Geneseo]
The Leader [Corning]
Lewisboro Ledger [Lewisboro]
Mineola American [Mineola]
New Hyde Park Illustrated [Hyde Park]
New York Observer [New York]
Newsday [Melville]
Nyack Villager [Nyack]
Observer-Dispatch [Utica]
The Oneida Daily Dispatch [Oneida]
Oyster Bay Enterprise-Pilot [Oyster Bay]
The Patriot and Free Press [Cuba]
The Post-Standard/Syracuse Herald-Journal [Syracuse]
Press-Republican [Plattsburgh]
The Queens Courier [Bayside]
Rome Observer [Rome]
The Saratogian [Saratoga Springs]
Sullivan County Democrat [Callicoon]
Village Voice [New York]
The Villager [New York]
The Wave of Long Island [Rockaway]

There’s also Dan’s Paper, a free weekly on Long Island.

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One from Larned, Kansas:

The Larned Tiller & Toiler.

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A few more from the UK not covered in the OP:

The Citizen [Gloucester]
The Clarion [Yeovil]
Kidderminster Shuttle
Malvern Gazette & Ledbury Reporter
The Sentinel [Stoke-on-Trent]
Hucknall & Bulwell Dispatch
Louth Leader
Stretford & Urmston Messenger
Morecambe Visitor
Southport Visiter (sic)
Widnes World

I always had the impression that papers had weirder names in the US than here. You seem to have covered the territory for the UK press as far as I can tell.

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Just as an aside, the San Jose Mercury News was not named for a means of communication. It was named for the substance mercury. Unfortunately I don’t have a cite, but I remember reading this and being surprised by it in the Merc itself a few months ago.

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Then there is our ever loving Toledo Blade
Believe me when I say there is very little cutting edge about this publication.

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Calgary used to have the ** Calgary Eye Opener**

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In Toronto there are the English-language Star, Sun, Globe and Mail (formed from the merger of two older papers, the Globe and the Mail & Empire), and the National Post (arrived fairly recently). Until the National Post came along, all the English-language newspapers had vaguely celestial names…

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This one’s been puzzling me for years.

If you slide your eyes leftward, you’ll see that I’m in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock is one of the flattest places on earth. No mountains, no valleys, no nothin’. There simply aren’t adjectives to adequately express just how flat it is here.

Our local newspaper is the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Now, you tell me: is that or is that not the equivalent of naming your newspaper the Arctic Circle Coconut or the Sahara Monsoon? They decided to name the paper after something that could not possibly occur in the area, ever.

Anyway, a couple more:

The New Mexican (that’s it, no “journal”, no “times”, that’s the whole name.)
And it may be fictional, but: The Springfield Shopper.

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Man, don’t get me started on the Avalanche-Journal. I’ve had to have my research dept. update our info about those guys 5 times in the last week because even THEY don’t have their shit straight.

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Hereabouts we have the Austin American-Statesman, formed by the merging of the old Austin American and the Austin Statesman dailies. And then there’s the good paper (ie, the one that runs Cecil’s column), the Austin Chronicle…

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Some Iowa newspaper names:
Anamosa Journal-Eureka (Did the publisher think up the name while taking a bath?)

Burlington Hawk Eye (An allusion to the state nickname.)

Centerville Daily Iowegian (Apparently the word “Iowan” was just too simple.)

Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil (It’s sweeter than candy…)

Fontanelle Observer (I admit, it’s the name of the city, not the paper that makes this one amusing. I just have this image of a newborn’s parents carefully watching the soft spot…)

Panora Vedette (???)

What Cheer Paper (Just to be clear, “What Cheer” is actually the name of the town. Apparently all the originality was used up in naming the city and they went totally generic for the newspaper name.)

Woodbine Twiner (???)
All of these names came from the membership list of the Iowa Newspaper Association

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Our daily paper in Memphis is The Commercial Appeal.

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Knoxville has the News Sentinel, Nashville the Tennessean and Atlanta the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Chattanooga formerly had two newspapers, the Times and the News Free Press (yeah that name got some jokes). Ther merged and are now known only as the Free Press. The town I went to college in has the Mid-Maine Morning Sentinel.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, as others have already mentioned New Orleans and Memphis.

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To name a few more that I always have had fun with:

Tombstone Epitaph—Arizona

Da Queen Bee—Arkansas

Daily Boomerang—Wyoming

Fairplay Plume—Colorado

Solid Muldoon—Colorado

Jefferson Jimplecute—Texas

Birmingham Eccentric–Alabama

Perhaps the most boring name I have ever seen was The Newspaper…Talk about boring.

In fact an Australian friend of mine has even written an e-book on the subject of weirdly named U.S. Newspapers. (I am quoted in it. See if you can spot me it). It might be able to be reached at:

www.bdb.ca.za/shackle/articles/eccentric.html

I say “might” because I am always screwing the address up. I’ll try again if this one doesn’t work.

TV