Things that move and dolls/stuffed animals are OK to name. Plants, maybe. (Some college friends had a plant called Robert Plant.) And I’ve named two of my guitars, Old Blue and New Blue.
What’s insane about it? I need to know the difference between things so that I don’t use the wrong thing. Naming is the way to do that.
You also aren’t addressing something commonly named by men.
And how do you know that? You weren’t there, after all. He surely wouldn’t have given them all individual names, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d done so for any he had regular contact with. Especially before Eve–being the only individual in the whole world must be awfully lonely.
Actually, I would suspect the urge to name stuff is related to the urge to turn on the tv or radio “for company” when we’re alone, even when we then proceed to ignore it. When the objects we use on a regular basis have a name, they have the illusion of a personality, which gives us the illusion of having someone with us, of having a relationship. We are, after all, social creatures, wanting to feel connected is normal.
And yes, my husband gives our cars titles. My orange Fit is The Circus Peanut, or just the Peanut, and his VW is Der Vagon.
There are 6 working computers in our house currently. All of them need to be named for the network, and it’s a lot easier to refer to the Frankenbox (made up of bits and pieces of older machines) than to say “the media machine that sits in the basement”. Plus, in a couple of years, Frankenbox will be replaced by another machine, which would have to be called “the NEW media machine that sits in the basement” to seperate it from the current one.
And why is naming an object any different than naming a recipe. “Chicken Kiev” doesn’t really tell you anything, other that it probably has chicken in it. “Snickerdoodle” tells you even less.
It’s just bizarre to me is all. Perhaps I have an imagination deficiency or something but I simply find it insane to pretend I have enough of a personal relationship with my tools or a table lamp or a t-shirt to give it a personalized, unique name.
Oh, you mean Mr. Happy?
In seriousness, though, since what it seems to me you’re getting at is the anthropomorphizing of an object by giving it a personal name, it seems to me that it indicates a certain degree of emotional attachment to the object. It’s not necessarily kiddie or cutesie, especially in the case of weapons. A well-known (to this board, at least) example…
Jayne: Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of 'em carried this. It’s a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun.
Mal: [exclaims in Chinese] You offering me a trade?
Jayne: A trade? Hell, it’s theft. This the best gun made by man. It has extreme sentimental value. It’s miles more worthy 'n what you got!
Mal: What I got? She has a name.
Jayne: So does this. I call it Vera.
A less aggressive but no less adult example would be B.B. King and his guitar, Lucille. I don’t think anyone would call B.B. nuts for it – he’s very attached to that guitar because of the amount of time devoted to it.
Wow, I’m surprised so many people had no idea that computers have to have a name and it’s a required part of the set-up process. Some other guy in the thread (that is my thread, about naming my next computer) was making similarly weird comments as the OP, thinking I wanted to name it so I could call it or read it bedtime stories or something. (though I do have quite the fondness for my machines I don’t go quite that far)
Have you guys never set-up a computer or a home network before? Never looked at your computer’s properties?
Anyway it’s sort of like naming a ship. You need to be able to identify it from others, first of all. But you also have a fondness for its awesomeness so it deserves a more personalized name than “C55-X30128” or what have you.
When I set up a new computer, I usually just give it my own name, but then I only have one computer at a time. I didn’t know most people gave it a different name but then I guess that does make sense if there are many to keep track of.
Do men actually do this? I thought it was just a joke perpetuated by Hollywood. I have never met a man that did, to my knowledge, and any women who tried to name mine would be better off naming my ass because that is all she would see as I was running out the door.
A lot of us knew that, but were still addressing the question as it applies to non-computer objects that get named… which is a fairly frequent occurrence.
(Well, at least I presume a lot of us knew that…)
You’re married to Pee-wee Herman?
While inspired by your thread, I think the discussion is about something else at this point… i.e., cutesy anthropomorphism in general.
My computer has a name, but my car, gun, and penis do not. My cat’s actually pretty fortunate to have one.
Oh yeah, I just meant the OP and the other guy who was making comments similar to the OP in mine. I know most of you guys do know I’m not crazy for naming my computer, but the fact that even those 2 people (I may have over-exaggerated with the phrase “so many people”) had such a strange reaction to it was disconcerting.
I can think of three instances where I named things. Two of my stuffed animals have names (Pandy and Theodore). My car has a name (Karma), but that was mostly because my mom was there when I bought it and I got a good deal on it. I don’t address it as such. At one of my jobs I named all the printers, but I had about ten of them hooked up and it was easier finding ‘Kern’ and ‘Uncial’ than ‘Epson’ and ‘Epson2’.
On the other hand, my mom has named her car (previous car was Zelda, I don’t remember the current car’s name), the Roomba (Rudy - my suggestion). We also call the Garmin, Gary. Well, Gary Garmin, which is kind of a joke because my dad’s name is Gary and he’s usually the navigator. Several of her trolls also have names, but not all of them (the only one I can think of right now is Juki).
I call my Dell laptop Delbert.
But that’s about it.
mmm
Didn’t Adam Sandler own that one for awhile?
I mostly only name stuff that talks. Actually, I name the voice rather than the object. The GPS is Bitchin’ Betty. I had a little talking ball I named Ivan.
My Brother names everything. I once gave him an old car, but for various reasons, put $1 on the bill of sale…so he named it Buck.
My laptop is Baby. daHubby’s desktop is Old Paint, my work desktop is Hal. Our previous Subaru was called “Suebee” and the one we have now is “SueBeeToo.” Dave’s Pontiac Laser was “Red” for “The Red Sled” and my first car was “Nigel” because the licence plate had the letters NGL on it.
A friend of mine calls her GPS unit “The Iz” because she has the Eddie Izzard voice module in it.
Ummmm …because it’s fun and silly?
Mostly I just name cars. But my GPS is Jill (because that’s one of the voices that came with the unit). I don’t know, with the car thing, maybe it’s, on a smaller scale, what people do with ships? With people who do this that I know (including myself), we don’t honestly think our car has any sort of real human type attributes, it’s just silliness for silliness’ sake.
Huh. I never thought of giving my computer a personal name. The computer is just a way to connect to other personalities–it doesn’t have a personality of its own.
I have named other objects, though: while the current car has no name, other cars that were about to break down had names like Bessie or Gertie. And I named my Clarinet in high school band: she’s Clarice. And, yes, she’s female–I don’t blow males.
Heck, nearly everything I name is female. Anyone else notice something like that?