I’ve named several of my cars - only the ones I liked - but not always with human names: an old white Dodge was “Whitey,” and a 1967 VW Beetle was “the Coach” (like a stagecoach, not a sports coach). I had a Horizon once that was just “that damn car.”
But the two cars I’ve really liked both had human names, and both were male names: a Corolla SC was “Carlo” (because it sounded good with “Corolla” and because it felt like a cruising buddy to me), and my current car, favorite of all time, is a Jaguar XK8 which I call “James” because it’s like my chauffeur - respectful, courteous, efficient, and gentlemanly. When I drive home from work, I simply say, “Home, James,” and the car takes care of the rest.
Naming your car if one of those things you do to make yourself stand out from the pack just a little bit more. It’s a channel for your creativity. It marks you as quirky and interesting, but not SO quirky that people will be calling for the men in the white coats. And the funnier and more clever the name, shows how funny and clever you are yourself.
I have named cars with male names, female names and non-gender type names. (I am male.) I had a 1976 Cadillac, which of course became “The Pimpmobile.” I purchased a GMC Typhoon, basically a GMC Jimmy on steroids. They only made it for two years. This vehicle was a diva who demanded a ton of my time, attention and money. Just like a supermodel. So, I named her “Tyra” (Tyra the Typhoon). I had a 1976 AMC Pacer which had a blue interior and exterior, which naturally became “The Smurf.” I had a red Dodge 600 Convertible which became “Bernie” (because the red represented sunburn, which I often got while driving with the top down if I forgot to put on the sunblock).
My high school friend had a 1973 Dodge Dart, “The Rustmobile.” Not too clever but appropriate.
But my favorite, bar none, was a 1974 Chevrolet Impala owned by another friend, who named it “Vlad.” That’s right, “Vlad the Impala.” You can steal that if you want, Impala owners.
I believe I know why people name their cars… For those who know very little about their fragile babies believe that if they give their car a personality they can beg the car to work with them… You can’t do that if it’s just a machine. If you give it a soul the car might acquiesce to your demands and start in the cold or stop making that ‘clunk clunk’ noise.
Of course you name your car! And naming a car can be more difficult than naming your children! My husband and I have always named our cars. My oldest daughter now owns my former car, Monica, a red Ford Focus; however, I do not know if daughter refers to said car by that name or any other name. I’ve had two VWs both named Brunhilde and a Taurus wagon named Tauretha. Husband has had 206Z named Moto and presently has Porsche named Lola. Only two cars in family history have gone without a name…my youngest daughter’s 97 Cavalier was sooooooo boring, that the best I could do was just call it Chevy (but with a
“chur” pronounciation of the “ch”). Oh, also had a Mercedes named Janis…after Janis Joplin (oh lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz)…but I agree, Tom and Ray…ALL cars, regardless of name, are called expletive deleted when something goes wrong.
YES.
If it has THAT much ‘CHARACTER’!
My beat-up 1964 Falcon was “Okwarrin”
My beat-up 1984 Celica is “Edgarrr”
I spend a lot of time with my car, so I like to be on “friendly” terms.
My theory is that it helps to call it by name and talk really sweet to it when you’re trying to encourage it to keep running.
I’m a girl, so I tend to call mine by masculine -
or spacy, other-worldly - names.
If I had a spaceship, I would totally name it.
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Have you ever decided to sell you car and voiced that intent while in or nearby your car? What happens? The car starts to fall apart. This is not merely a coincidence this is because the car has a soul and is extremely hurt that you are planning on getting rid of it after so many years of service. Therefore, if it has a soul, it should have a name (male or female is not important). I have a number of friends who have named their cars such as "Dodgey (a dodge camper van), “Suzie” (a subaru). Those cars, especially the subaru put in many many years of service to their owners due to the simple fact that they were taken seriously and their feelings were considered.
Many years ago I had a Valiant(agood car) I named it Carrie. There was a popular movie:“Valiant is the name for Carrie” That was the only time I named a car.
Ellie
My experience is that I have called the cars by the make:
the Sprite: 1961 kept for 2.5 years
The Healey: 1964 kept for 30 years
The Bus: 1972 VW bus kept for 7 years
The Tercel: toyota kept for 14 years.
I felt very connected to all these vehicles
The first car I named?Blackie, a 1998 Subaru Outback Sport with was totaled in my first real accident in 50 years of driving.
I now drive a grey 2006 Subaru Subaru Outback Sport and I feel very little attachment to this car. I miss Blackie at lot. I miss THE HEALEY the most but I found a really good home for it with a man with a lot more money to sink into than I have. He loves it, too!
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong as far as naming your car. After all, it’s your car, so do what you want. I’ve always gotten way too attached to my cars. My first, a VW rabbit, I named “The March Hare.” I was torn up when I had to get rid of that car, although it was giving me A LOT of problems. When I grieved over trading it in, my brother observed, “But it’s trying to kill you!” My current car is named “Polly Esther James.” I like to think that she’s the reincarnation of a 18th century English harlot, trying to create some good karma. None of the men I know name their cars, but many of the women do. My aunt had a car named “Sebastian” and a good friend has a Honda named “Sadie.” I DO take my car in for regular maintenance, mainly because I don’t want her to strand me. (That would be poor for her karma, too!) Anyway, I love your show. I listen to it every Saturday!
Bwwwaaaa ha ha ha!!! Sexist car names. That’s funny stuff!
[b]They’re like cats[/] - as long as you call them for dinner, they’re all good.
I name mine - but I seriously doubt they care what I call them -
as long as I stop off at the pump regularly.
We used to name horses that pulled wagons.
Well, that was necessary, because the horse could learn its name and realize we were talking to it. Men have always named their boats and ships and flying machines because their very lives depended on having the machines’ spirits smile upon their passengers and protect them from the perils of the sea and of altitude. If a car breaks down and dies, you just coast to the shoulder and walk away from the thing. Maybe you can be like the soldier in the old (Bill Maudlin?) cartoon and shoot your broken down Jeep like it was an injured horse, but in most cases we just don’t get so attached to land transportation unless we spend all day in it and it is the focus of our employment (e.g., train driver and his locomotive, long-distance truck driver and his rig).
For the most part, naming a car or truck is probably a harmless foible. It might even help by having us treat (drive) it more gently and be more conscientious about proper maintenance. On the other hand, it might hurt by making us hesitate to swerve into a roadside pole to avoid a small child running into the street. Less seriously, it might cause us to hang on to a junker long after a sensible look at the economics dictates that we send it to the crusher.
Yeah… frankly I was SHOCKED to hear that Click & Clack DON’T name their cars!
I have always named my cars; I also talk to my cars. I’ve never owned a new car, so lots of times this is “please start, please start”… I think it works better if you call the car by name. My current new used car is a 1994 silver Subaru Legacy named Jane.
I’ve had Hondas and Toyotas most of my adult driving life (and these are very good cars, let me say). However, when I turned 45 four years ago, I decided to buy a car for moi - I test drove the majority of the near-luxury segment: Infiniti G35, Cadillac STS, Audi A4, Volvo S60, Acura TL, Saab, Lexus IS, Mercedes - I, The Manual Transmission Princess, put quite a few dealers through their paces because I INSISTED on test driving a MANUAL (not an easy feat in Southern California)
Anyway, when I test drove a BMW 325i, it was instant love - the handling, the road feel, the exhaust note, the buttery smooth shifting. I purchased a TopasBlau 325i in late 2002, and it arrived at the dealer 9 December 2002.
I named him (I’m a female) Karl Bimmer (after the Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner), and in less than five years, I have 145,000 miles on him (well, it is the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’!)
The older the vehicle the more soul it has. Older vehicles definitely need a name; as with your old tractor.
I’ve always named my cars. They are my friends and I care greatly about thier feelings. My first car was an '80 El Camino that I bought for cheap with a blown engine and rebuilt. That was my redneck mobile so I named it Bobby-Sue; she was a good car. Then I inherited my first Mazda and named her Mazzie. My husbands Dodge truck is Roger, good ole Roger. Our new MazdaSpeed is simply Zak because he’s a young punk with a fast attitude.
Cars are indeed soulless mechanical objects. That does not prevent them from being possessed by souls damned for eternity to wander the earth for failing to change the oil filters on their 1968 VW microbusses. I have possessed a number of automobiles and automobile-like devices over the years and those that deserved names have gotten them.
The first was a 1969 VW beetle. This car was a hand-me-down from my grandfather to my father in 1978. At that time it had 12,000 lovely Southern California miles on it. We lived in Wisconsin. I took possession of said auto in 1982 when it had acquired 75,000 not-so-nice Midwestern miles and winters on it. I drove it back to California. On the trip my girlfriend named it “Burt” after the VW dealer in my small midwestern hometowm.
The second was a 1980 VW Rabbit purchased from the above dealer. In 1984 (with about 125,000 miles on it) this vehicle left me stranded in very sub-zero weather (~-25 F) outside of Normal, ILL. I named this car “Emily” because of an Emily that did that to me on an emotional level a few years previously.
The third was a 1972 Ford Econoline I was given during graduate school (circa 1985), in Wisconsin again, by my erstwhile father. This was a telephone company surplus vehicle that had been bought at auction by a family friend. This friend was a history professor, antique auto restorer, and farmer. The van did not see restoration duty. It saw farm…dooty. Now the wise and altruistic folks at the Wisconsin DMV chose to restrict the number of letters that they used in the vehicle description box on the title certificate. This van was classified as a truck, spelled “truk.” My girlfriend (at the time, different from the one above) and I struck on the name “Jack” spelled “J-A-K” as an homage to our mutual former boss, who, like this van, was big, fat, white, ugly and smelled really, really bad.
No other vehicle I have owned has ever been possessed of a soul deserving a name. I had a 1965 GMC suburban that drove until the gas tank fell off (on the 5 freeway, going to Disneyland). The previous owner called it (In your best Jackie Gleason, please) “Norton, the water buffalo.” but that was a tag of recognition, not so much of a name. I bought a 1989 Ford Festiva brand new but that car was too well-behaved to earn a name. I wrote to you about a 1984 VW rabbit convertible that was possessed, but my term of ownership was too brief. My last vehicles have been 1995 Subarus (2 of them) and they have been too well-behaved and reliable to get names.
So there.
Dave R
I never named a car until I met my wife but every car since has had a name. My wife’s '97 Honda Odyssey is named Buddy, because he’s friendly (large enough to haul stuff, small enough to park easily) and reliable. My wife named my '02 CR-V Sherman shortly after we became ‘parronts’ to a cute little Lilac-Crowned Amazon parrot, Peabody. (Get it? - Peabody and Sherman!) It turns out that Peabody is a girl but the name hasn’t affected her femininity and Sherman is extremely macho - well, macho for a CR-V!
John & Betty
Redondo Beach, CA
In the early 80’s, I owned a car with a name that was forced on it by my coworkers. It was a VW Dasher that I acquired from an insurance auction. After judicious placement of baling wire and duct tape, and well-placed sledge hammer blows to the tie rods, I had it so it was more or less driveable. The duct tape was used to change the ‘D’ to a 'B’on the vehicle badge. (I am female, if that matters.)
At Breitenbush Hot Springs, an alternative wellness retreat in the Oregon Cascades, the community that runs the retreat and conference center named their backhoe “Fluffy” to counteract its overly masculine qualities.
Well, “yes,” of course you are wrong! Ha, ha. (Guessed it, I am ‘female,’ and a ‘wife,’ so you KNOW you are WRONG! I don’t HAVE to be ‘your’ (either one of you!) wife, just ‘being a wife’ gets it, you know!)
OK, along with the stuff you are wrong about (while I have your attention); you said on the air that your survey would check whether the person was Male or Female, and how old they are, too! So? You missed saying that in your ‘question,’ but I will overlook that since you already stated you would not have paid a bit of attention & not given it another second of thought when the ‘old lady’ (I, being one, resent that statement, too, you could have said something a bit more respectful! Even just said, ‘the lady,’)said to ‘take care of Mark.’ I realize you are not ‘into’ details! However, from the “Queen of Details” I will say: First, Yes, I am Female, and I will be 66 years of age on Sept. 6th this year, and NO, I have not, at least not routinely, anyway, named a car! My first one, that I, not a husband, bought was a 1974 Fiat Stationwagon, (in Jan. 1976-when I moved to CA from New Orleans-see? I am not TOO dumb, huh? I did MOVE out of New Orleans, and in 1976, no less! But then I was born in Baltimore, MD, raised for a while in rural PA, and then in 'Jersey, moving to TX, then to N.O. (talk about ‘out of the frying pan into the fire!’), so for me, CA WAS a good move! (Then to Hawaii, back to CA, back to 'Jersey, back to CA, and now thankfully, to beautiful state of WA, where we will STAY!) One, & only ONE exception to my Not naming a car; in mid-1980’s I bought a 1979 (I think, or around that yr., anyway) Pinto Stationwagon & named it, (YES, I said, “Named it!”) “Peaches.” For the obvious reason, it was ‘Peach colored.’ We were very broke at the time, my active duty husband was transferred in 2 yrs., when we had been told we would be at the same duty station for 4 yrs. (& we were usually at one for 3 yrs.) so we bought a house! Lost it, despite all efforts to rent it out, etc. Had a big down-sizing to do, and that was the ONLY car we could find in a ‘junk used car lot,’ & we hoped by naming it, we could ‘couch’ it to keep running, like from San Diego to San Francisco, in the summer, w/o air conditioning, and we had reason to go an inland route thru a desert, too! (NOT the most direct route, but we had a stop to make.) It worked! We gave it away, in San Francisco, that was in 1988. Yes, it was still ‘running’ a bit, anyway we did not have to tow it to give it away, at least. But now I have a 1993 Volvo, bought in Hawaii, third owner, sold to be CA smog ready, & I was shipping it back to CA. No one understood why I cared that it had a seat warmer-when I bought it, in Hawaii, & was moving to CA. Then I got a job offer in 'Jersey! Now we have snow in WA! So I have the ‘last laugh.’ Bought it in Nov. 2000, just before I graduated with my Masters in Library & Information Science, from Univ. of Hawaii, & it only has (remember it IS a 1993) 167,000 miles on it! Runs GREAT. I LOVE it. It’s a 940, 4 door sedan, Teal color with tan leather seats. BTW, ‘no name,’ not yet at least, but now I am 'thinking about it. Any suggestions? I liked your suggestion of Markie if that is how you spell it. But for that truck, not my ? hmm. . . . Valerie? Would “Volvo” be her (see? I say “her”) sir (last) name? “Valerie Volvo” What else would roll off the tongue better? She IS from Sweeden, maybe a Sweedish name? I will have to think on it. And do “Research.” Librarian, remember?
Have a great weekend-Labor Day, IF anyone is even reading this far donw on the page, anyway. And “Yes, I AM writing a book!” 
Sandra (Lifecoach) Check out my site:
http://www.freewebs.com/lifecoach-wisdom/