Naming the family cars just got a little harder

What’s in a name? I assume that the naming of people, animals, boats, etc. became necessary when there came to be more than one of the same kind in a person’s domain.

If there were two girls in the family, something more specific than Girl was required if you were going to want to refer to just one of them. If a man had two horses, he had to name them if he were going to talk about them or to them.
There came a time in the history of the world, also, when it became expedient for man to name his cars. In the old days you said, “ I am going for a ride in the car,” as opposed to the bicycle, the scooter or the washing machine. There was only one car.

But when households accumulated more than one vehicle, it became necessary to differentiate between them. You could say you were going for a ride in the Ford unless you had two of them. Or you could say you were going for a ride in the white car unless you were partial to white vehicles. Or you could even be more specific and say you were going for a ride in the sports car.

But it is just more personal, creative and practical to give your vehicle an appropriate name. Then you are able to announce precisely, and to no one’s confusion, just exactly in which car you are going to ride.

It prevents annoying problems like running off in the car that someone else wants to use, or running off with someone else’s wallet, planner, lunch or lunch money that have been left in “the car.” (In the Butterbean family, car-hopping has nothing to do with Dairy Queens.)

The best names are clever, descriptive and concise. You can probably pass the naming duties along to the teen-agers in your family if you have been remiss or aren’t quite up to the task. They are clever. Just ask them.

If you are lacking in imagination, I am herewith passing on a list of witty car names along with a basic description so you get the idea. You should be able to take inspiration from this collection:

The Iguana is long and green with scales. The Pickle is also long and green, but with bumps. (Old, long and green is particularly stimulating to teenagers.)

The Gadget Mobile is equipped with every available option. The Rammer is one long, low muscle car. The Green Goose is a nearly-extinct Datsun hatchback. The Gray Ghost is back from the land of the dead.

The Rice Rocket is small and white and made in Japan. Orange Crush is a long-bed, heavy-haul pickup truck which is the perfect color for deer-hunting. The Dumpster has a dump-bed and is usually full of trash. The Twinkie is a yellow VW bus. The Marijuana Mobile is a van that is used to deliver flowers.

The Banana Boat is a yellow maxivan, and The Batmobile is the scariest car in town. The 8-1 refers to the truck with an 8.1 liter engine. You can see the advantage in not having to announce that you are going to drive “the truck with the 8.1 liter engine.”

You should be duly supplied with some inspiration now. Get naming while you have the chance. The spectrum of cars available for naming is rapidly getting narrower. There will be fewer kinds, fewer sizes, and fewer colors. What do you expect from government-issue?

You can forget names like Big Red, Black Beauty and Fast Eddy or anything else reminiscent of power, speed, or a dependence on gasoline.

But wait a minute, there would be greater challenge in naming cars when they are all carbon copies. Actually, I am getting into it already. What about The Sun Chip, or The Two-seater or Bioshock, or Bellybutton…no, I was not thinking of The Green Machine and neither were you.