Naming Names

The names that collectors give their model horses are endlessly fascinating to me.  Not the ones that are just the issue name, like Misty or Justify, but the ones that people make up when they take a new horse into their "herd."

There are so many ways to name a model horse.  A lot of collectors, especially those that are into pedigree assignment (finding real or model horses to represent the sires and dams of their models) like to follow real horse naming conventions -- and there are a lot of them.  In some breeds, the conventions are mandatory, like the requirement to name a Lipizzaner stallion after one of the breed's six founding sires and the stallion's own dam.  Others are not mandatory, but tend to recur frequently within a breed, like the naming of a Thoroughbred after something suggested by either its sire's or its dam's name, or a combination of both.  In Quarter Horses you often see double- or triple-barreled names that contain both a reference to its sire and/or dam line and some sort of phonetic pun, like Big Chex to Cash (son of Nu Chex to Cash).

Phonetic puns are also popular in names collectors come up with -- they're fun to spell and fun to pronounce.  Collectors can also use the same technique that Thoroughbred owners use when naming their horses, only this time using a name suggested by the model name instead of one suggested by a sire or dam.  Other times you might want to give your model a name that reminds you of where you bought it, or who you got it from.  You can also use lines from poems, songs, movies -- almost anything in popular culture -- to name your model horse.  Or you can give your horse a sweet, simple single word name -- the sort of name you might call your own "backyard pony" or the sort of stable name a horse with a more complicated formal name might receive.

I've used all of these methods to name my model horses, but I think the ones I enjoy the most are the clever puns and the pop culture references.  I like punning names because, as I said, they're simply fun to say and spell, and I like pop culture references because of the insight they give into the working of the owner's mind.  I love getting that little flash of recognition when I encounter a model horse named after some pop culture reference that respond to.  It gives me a sudden sense of kinship -- that "oh, you like that too" response -- when I find something I have in common with someone else, beyond a simple fascination with model horses.

Some of the names of my model horses have layers of meaning for me as they come from a "stream of consciousness" kind of thinking, one thing suggesting another and then another resulting in a name that (to me) sums it all up.  For what it's worth, here are the names of some of my model horses, along with the thinking that went into the names:

"Maestoso Antigua"

I don't really like Lipizzaner naming conventions because the stallion's name always sounds female to me, since the unique part of the name is always the name of the foal's dam.  To get around that I looked for names or words ending in "a" that didn't sound quite so feminine.  The tropical island of Antigua was, to my ears, the right fit -- it technically follows conventions, but it has a more masculine sound and it means "antique" or "ancient," not a bad name for a stallion named after his ancestors. 

"Czarkist"

One of my favourite phonetic puns is the one I used for this horse.  I decided to make this generic Beswick horse an Orlov Trotter -- a Russian breed that is most often seen in dapple grey.  Making a pun on "Starkist" (the canned tuna), I named the horse after the Czar (an alternative spelling of Tsar) of Russia and implied that the horse was blessed, or kissed (kist) by the Russian monarch.

"Pat-the-Bunny"

Not only is this the name of a popular children's book, but it reminds me of how long it took Stone Horses to complete my DAH pony.  I ordered him on St. Patrick's Day (Pat) and received him by Easter (the Bunny).  Stone DAHs were completed more quickly back then.

"Glencoe"

Just like Elton John, I'm a fan of sad songs.  When searching for a Scottish name for this North Light Shetland pony, I remembered the mournful song "The Massacre of Glencoe" -- a song about an ancient act of treachery that nearly moved me to tears the first time I heard it (I still find heart-breaking to this day).  One of the lines of the song refers to the "cruel snow" that contributed to the tragedy and covered the graves of the dead, and since my shaggy grey Shetland's coat reminded me of stormy, windblown, wet and dirty snow, he just seemed a suitable symbol of the song.

"Marigold Cotton"

The name of the Haflinger breed  has always reminded me of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Halflings" -- Halfling being another word for Hobbit.  Most of Tolkien's better-known Hobbits are male, though, so when I was searching for a Hobbit-like name for my Breyer Haflinger mare I did a bit of googling for the names of female Hobbits.  When I found "Marigold Cotton" (sister of Frodo's companion Samwise Gamgee) I knew I'd found my match.  Marigolds are yellow and cotton is white, and my pony's palomino coat mimics these colours.

"Marguerite"

The Hagen-Renaker/Breyer Performing Misty reminds me, of course, of Misty of Chincoteague, but I've seen so many Mistys named after weather-related phenomena that I wanted to do something different for mine.  For me, Marguerite was a no-brainer since it was the first name of Misty's most famous biographer, Marguerite Henry.

I name all of my models as soon as I get them, and sometimes even before I get them if I know what they are going to look like beforehand.  But I find that I remember the names of the models I used to show (many of whom I've since sold) better than those that I name and display on a shelf.  No doubt that's because when one is showing a horse one is always writing down the name, keeping track of its winnings, and even hearing the name pronounced if it does particularly well at a live show.

For that reason, I always try to make my names as easy to pronounce as possible, even when using a foreign language for the name.  This reminds me of one of my very favourite horse names.  Since I had every intention of live showing him when I got him, I named my Breyer First Competitor model "Unpronounceable."  I just thought it would be so much fun to hear a judge call out something like "And the Original Finish Champion is . . . Unpronounceable."  And, let me tell you, it was!

 "Unpronounceable"