What’s in a Name?

It was the eve of Christmas Eve.  December 23^rd.  I sat in a living room in the rural countryside near Mooreland, Indiana.  Some of my favorite people were there.  My niece is a college student majoring in English and marketing.  One of my nephews is a tech-savvy young teenager.  Ok, all teenagers are tech-savvy, but there’s nothing he can’t figure out.  And my sister.  Ironically, I’m not going to use their names in this article about names.

Early in the conversation, my niece, the aspiring author, mentioned that were she to write a novel of a particular genre, she’d use a nom de plume rather than her actual name.  She thinks that her name – which is beautiful, by the way – sounds like it belongs to a romance writer.  She anticipates that it would negatively affect book sales of the type that she’d like to write.

I suggested that a name doesn’t mean much until it’s associated with one’s actions.  We Americans would probably think that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a crazy name had we not first heard it in the context of his blockbuster action movies.  (I’m not quite old enough to have been aware of Arnold the body-builder prior to his acting.)

A few minutes later, my nephew began talking about domain names.  He wanted to pick a good one for his Minecraft server or other use.  He mentioned mc.hypixel.net or something as an example of an existing server, and I thought again that this name didn’t mean much until they made it mean something.

That’s when I decided to conduct a little experiment using my phone.  I opened up a random password generator from BitWarden and swung the slider to the left to get the shortest random password of five characters.  Then I opened the GoDaddy app and searched for it as a domain name.  It was available with a dot-com extension: tv46u.com.

Naturally, this randomly-generated domain name begins with no meaning at all.  My sister suggested that maybe tv46u.com is TV for people 46 years old and up.  We had a good round of joking about what TV for 46-year-olds and up might include.  Home renovation.  Paying for your children’s college education.  Affordable family vacations.  Saving for retirement.

All joking aside, my nephew bet that I wouldn’t do anything with tv46u.com.  The existence of this website and this post in particular are in part a friendly response to that (non-monetary) bet.  It’s my hypothesis that a meaningless name can be given meaning by actions, or in the case of a website, content.

So if you’ve read this far, consider playing a part in the experiment.  Drop a comment below saying that you were here, the general area you’re from, and whether you believe that some names are better or confer advantages over others, or if you lean in the direction of thinking that a name is what you make it.  I welcome your opinion regardless of which side of the fence you’re on.

Merry Christmas.