Ocean-going ships, airships and spacecraft are also “soulless mechanical devices,” but there is a long tradition of giving names to them. Why not give a name to other vehicles, such as automobiles?
My 2005 MINI Cooper is named Bercilak. She’s green and British, so naturally I named her after the Green Knight. Before you start writing this off as yet another MINI-owner obsession, let me say that this is not the first car I’ve named.
OK, so it IS my first car whose name is rendered in vinyl graphics on each side, but that’s not too strange, it it?
“Should” you name your car? That’s like asking if you should wear your hair short or long.
However, the first car my wife and I owned was a 1966 Chevy van. You know, the one with the engine between the seats in the front. We called it “Pheidippides.” He’s the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens, said, “Rejoice, we conquer!,” and died. That was that van. Twenty six miles, and died. Repeatedly. But no victory.
Our second car was a 1967 Buick LeSabre we called Bacchus (the god of wine). He drank entirely too much.
Our third car was a brand-new Olds Omega. We called it Alpha N.
We’ve never named any car but I call my husband’s 1966 Volvo P1800 “The Bimbo” because it’s a cute car but that’s the extent of its appeal. This car is a “bottle blonde”–the original color is now covered with pale yellow paint. It’s hard to drive, quite uncomfortable, somewhat unreliable, and and has no air conditioning, but gets lots of admiring stares.
Yea you should name your car but PLEASE avoid the obvious like: “The Green Hornet” or the “Black Bomb”… be original… and of course it has to be a female name… all mechanical objects have female names…and I’m sure that that’s not politically correct but that’s the way it is…
i name alot of my internal combustion engines, like my pushmower is named henry, the other george, and my rider is named lonnie, even my Freightliner is named Freighty
You should absolutely name your car, truck, whatever. Every car I’ve ever had has been named the Funmobile, and they’ve lived up to the name. Interspersed with those were 2 trucks, named the Mule and the Goat, respectively. My Wife’s car is the Duck (her name) and my daughter’s Taurus is Morris. (Morris the Tarus–well, it kinda works). My son’s toyota is Betty.
Having a name for your car helps in many ways. They come when called (sometimes) and appreciate being talked to and coached to do things that lesser cars can’t–like getting you home on a tank that was empty 10 minutes ago.
I would think that guys with your depth of experience would have known this by now. Cars have souls, and souls need names.
My wife and I where suprised that you did not name your cars. We figured that you guys would have some great names for your favorite and not so favorite cars. My first car, 1957 Volvo 444 was given the name " The Egg" by my friends. My 69 142 was named " Greenpeace" and my wife and I named our 88 Samuai " Sami" It has many miles and is on its third engine. It has never let us down. We think it is due to the love. Dave H. Grass Valley, Ca.
I don’t see anything wrong with naming a car. I’ve done it myself, but keep forgetting what I’ve named them. My mother had the same problem with her children.
My daughter named her TV “Fred”, so I guess you can name anything.
With one exception, my vehicles over the years have never been named unless it was a momentary expletive muttered (sometimes shouted) when the set o’ wheels at my command - or vice versa - were not behaving properly (sorta’ like kids, friends, and colleagues!). The one exception…in college during the early 70’s (a bit of smoke-clouded haze now) I had a 1959, 3/4 ton, 4x4 IH TravelAll. A real tank of a vehicle that took me & my buds (some canned, some not) to many obscure, back-road, and off-road, places in south Texas and Mexico. Needless to say it was a bit battered (battle scars!), cluttered with the toys of my travels, and commonly in need of a bath. One, or more, of my miscreant cohorts & cronies verbally christened it “BASURA” (“garbage or rubbish” for you non-Spanish speakers!). Well, BASURA long ago became scrap metal (probably resurrected either as a Lamborghini or that big noisy truck that empties that foul-smelling can on your front curb once a week!). But her (in Spanish, the “a” ending generally denotes the feminine gender) name still fondly comes up in nostalgic retrospectives - usually brew enhanced - with my cronies of yore. Now, it’s NOT trash talk, mind you!!!
I have never felt the need to name any vehicle of mine, but my ex-husband (we are still friendly) named every one of his many cars, and I didn’t mind. He was a man after your own hearts: always took care of his own cars, always ran the current car into the ground before getting a new one, always kept the old car for parts. By “take care of”, I mean “kept it running”, not “kept it beautiful”. Personalizing his car seemed to be more of an ownership thing than anything else. Yes, the names he chose tended to be feminine, but not always - there was “Nyaah” (his dad’s hand-me-down station wagon) and “Half-Penny” (the successor to copper-colored “Penny”). I think of cars as being “it”, not “he” or “she”, and I’m a woman (for what that’s worth).
By all means, one should name one’s car. Think how much time you spend with this vehicle. How many times you’ve confided your most closely held thoughts and desires to this faithful beast. I’ve named all my cars starting with “Bobby McGee,” Scout, then on to Ferdinand, Gottlieb, Carl Rapp-Max Fritz (I know that’s a mouthful, but you should be able to decipher why),Henry Leland and “Phil.” My method might make for a good Puzzler…
I don’t generally name my cars, but there have been a couple of exceptions. I had a hand-me-down '62 Plymouth station wagon when I went to college. It was yellow and ugly. I worked at my buddy’s gas station on weekends and one of my coworkers dubbed it, “The Yellow Banana.” The name stuck with it. As ugly as it was, it was the car I owned when I met my wife and she’s still with me 36-years later!
In 1995, I had a company car; a white Chevy Lumina. It had a bad habit of being unable to start any time after 5 PM(one exception at noon). Five dealers couldn’t resolve the problem and it was replaced by a dependable '96 after we abandoned it in Idabel, OK. I called the '95 a “Lemona” for obvious reasons.
My brother names all his vehicles, his homes, Everything! I try not to drive like my brother.
Sept. 1 you were questioning why folks name
their cars - we are BIG on that. Here is
an explantion for us. A few years back we
were able to acquire a '96 Park Ave. as a
certified used car that just came to us
almost miraculously. It was gray with a
black rag top and was super elegant with
all the bells and whistles - grander than
any of our previous cars (we are now 80).
Well, due to the color and we felt that by
the grace of God we were able to acquire
this car, we named her GRACIE. After 130K
miles we aquired another Park Ave, this one
being platinum with a tannish rag top and
this has become GRACIE II.
We love naming our cars and even the shops
where we take her for service, ask if we
are bringing GRACIE in for service.
I needed a car to get me back and forth to work as cheap as possible. I went to the local buy here pay here and bought a 1995 Saturn for 1000. It rusn ok but not the greatest looking thing. My wife refered to it as a PIECE OF CRAP. Which anagramed its POC. I am learning Spanish for my job and practice constantly at home which annoys her. So she changed it to POCO which its Piece of Crap OLE’
I have never named a car, but my Dad did once, and had a lot of fun with it. Years ago he had a brown Ford Pinto station wagon, a little piece of junk really, that he just use to knock around town in. (He was probably in his 60s at the time, if you wanna know.)
So he thought up a name for this car, and it was a masculine one by the way: “Teddy”. And he mostly love using the name so that people would ask him how he came up with it. He would explain that President Theodore Roosevelt was known as “Teddy the Rough Rider”, hence the name for the car because it was a “rough rider”.
Dad is 86 now and still going strong. But I don’t think he has any names for his current two Toyotas.
I also think there is another good reason to give a car a masculine name – any Mitsubishi Lancer should be named “Mario”. 'Nuff said.
tomandray don’t name their cars, hah? One of the greatest carnames ever: Dodge Dartre–the Sleek Black Beauty
Although it has more words than a AKC champion bloodline, I’m sure it deserved every syllable.
Yes, you must absolutely name your car with a female name. I am a 52 year old guy and every car that I?ve owned since I was 16 has been called Betsy. At one point, I had 2 cars, so I named one of my Saabs Helga. Let?s face it, each car that you own has its own character and I believe naming the car makes you treat it better. By the way, I sent this posting from Leonard (my Lenovo laptop)!
My first car was an 83 Toyota Corolla that I received from my stepfather. He had named the car The Gup because of its license plate (it contained the letters GUP). I think that was the last car that he named and it was the only one I have ever called by name. I named my next two cars, but in the end I call them by either their make or model, depending on if the person I am talking to.
I’ve listened to your show for a long time, but this is the first time I felt compelled to post a comment. You said on the show that you think more women than men name their cars and it was also implied that people tend to name them like they would name pets. Maybe my experience is the exception, but almost every guy I know has a name for his car. They also always seem to be named after cartoons, movies, beer like Grey Ghost, Speed Racer, and The Silver Bullet. I have never actually named a car until I got got my current vehicle. I named it not out of affection, but out of loathing and frustration. ‘Lumpy’ is a slightly dented and scratched 97 Nissan Sentra that has consistently broken down at the worst possible moment at least 7 times in the last year. I’ll let you know if I name my next car, after owning Lumpy I’m considering buying a new car (and having a car payment, yikes) for the first time in my life.
Some cars beg for names. My first car, a new black with red interior 1964 Triumph TR-4, was Mandy. Much later, there came a new 1994 Ford Aerostar. After the obligatory 1,000 mile check by the dealer, we were told that the lug nuts were loose, so it became Lucille (loose wheel).