I know some of you do, and believe me, this post is not here to shame you. If naming your car feels right, name away and enjoy your car. But I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this one because, to be honest, I just don’t get it and I never have. Maybe you have to be a car namer to understand it, and I just am not one. But I see a lot of car people who do it, so I find it fascinating and kind of curious, just because I can’t see myself ever giving a car like the Sunchaser a human name, no matter how much I love it.
I am trying to procrastinate, because I need to go into the office and answer emails and work on billing. I have had a weird anxiety that I am fighting about my business. No matter how much I grow (revenue has increased by 2.5 times over the 5 years that the business has been open), I have always had this fear and stress that it will all go away tomorrow, and of late the feeling that my competitors will overtake me and erase me.
It is an irrational fear, because the business has been consistently growing and stable, and because new work continues to come in. But it has been one of the things that propels me to push for growth, and I find my worries increasing in these uncertain times. So reading about why people name objects is a nice distraction.
Anyway, the car naming thing is very common.
I find these stats interesting. Apparently, naming is more common among women than men. I do tend to use female pronouns to refer to cars, but I feel like for me that is more related to nomenclature for ships than to anthropomorphism. I just think of them as things, not beings. But I also don’t know if namers really think of their cars like living things, or if the naming thing is just fun whimsy.
I don’t think it means you are smarter or dumber if you name your car or if you don’t; I don’t see a superior or inferior approach to car ownership here. I think it is an interesting phenomenon, and as a non-namer, I am curious as to why those who name choose to do so, and how they choose the names. With pets, I usually hang out with a new edition for a while and I feel like the name emerges in connection with the personality. With my kids, the names just kind of came to us. Forgive the pun, but what drives the name of a car?
I will confess that if you name your Honda Rhonda, or your car McCarmick, I will probably think less of you. But not much less, especially if you love your car. Car enthusiasm goes a long way with me.
Where do you fall on this? Namer or non-namer? Non-namer who would think about it, or (like me) someone who can’t imagine naming a car?
I know if I tried it, it wouldn't stick. The Sunchaser is always just the Sunchaser to me.