Be honest with us, as a car enthusiast you’ve named yours, haven’t you? Hey, we’re not judging, it can be one of the hardest decisions to make regarding your car. In fact, we’ve been having a discussion at Motor-Vision HQ about the pet names we’ve had for our various cars over the years. Percy the Peugeot 206 was one that got some laughs of appreciation.
After chatting, we had a look around and it turns out that christening cars is taken pretty seriously these days, with name generators and such. We also found that there are several names that have been particularly popular in recent years.
With this in mind, we decided to have a look around and find five of our favourite pet names we’ve come across, and maybe even give you some hints for your new motor.
Do you have a cool name for your vehicle? Or maybe remember a favourite from your first car? We’d love to hear about it – let us know!
Why do it in the first place?
Before we kick off, we thought it’d be good to have a quick look into why people do this – and no, it’s not because they’re nuts.
There are those that say it goes back to yesteryear when we used to get around by horse and – potentially – carriage. Think about it, if it was the only way to travel, you needed a reliable steed and had to form a bond with it, so people always had a name for their horse.
A good example of this is when Christoph Waltz, as Dr King Schultz in Django Unchained, continuously introduces both himself and his horse, Fritz.
The years moved on with the invention of the internal combustion engine and car manufacturers name each model anyway, so why wouldn’t you want to give your car its own pet name?
Anyone can have a Jaguar F-TYPE (or more realistically a VW Golf) but nobody can have Cassandra… it’s that sort of thinking we’re going for.
Something Blue
According to a survey taken by the AA last year, some of the most popular names for cars have something Blue in them.
For example, Bluebelle, Blue Boy or even Bluey – the company states that most people seem to pick a name for their car based on its ‘personality’.
This might sound a little ridiculous, but we’re guessing that you sort of know what the AA is getting at here.
Betsey – she’s a girl with no gender
Perhaps a little bit old-fashioned for some people’s tastes, but this is another one of the most popular names for cars.
Not only this, but it seems that men and women are equally likely to name their car Betsey. Perhaps it sounds reliable, or maybe comforting? Regardless of what the reason actually is, the people have spoken and they have said that they shall have a car, and her name shall be Betsey.
Abraham – the first patriarch
The above two names were just based on the preferences of a UK audience, whereas Abraham takes into account the thoughts of people from all over the world.
We actually found it on NamesForCars.com, which can help you pick a name for your motor – it’s sort like buying a baby book, but it’s for cars.
One other one that was in the top five car names beginning with the letter A was Apollo, what kind of car would that suit? A DeLorean, maybe?
Herbie – the little car that could
It’s not unusual to be influenced by anyone, particularly celebrities, and we’re not surprised to hear that a lot of people are naming their cars things like The Rock and Britney.
However, we do have a soft spot for people calling them Herbie. Although it’s not the most original name in the automotive world, he was a cool little runner and it’s hard to disagree with it.
Others that cropped up in that list were The Batmobile, but if your car isn’t the Tumbler from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, or the original from the Adam West show then you probably shouldn’t name it that.
We do have time for people who call their car Kit though Nightrider and his talking teammate were cool, and now that The Hoff has sold the original vehicle, we don’t feel so bad about stealing its name for our runaround.
Eddie
We’re going slightly off track with this one and taking you to the land of HGVs and Eddie Stobart.
Anyone who has seen these is bound to have picked up that the company gives each one of its trucks a different and female name.
Why does it do this? There doesn’t seem to be a distinct reason, but members of the public now collect sightings of these lorries and have formed a fan club to celebrate the trucks and their names.
The company itself now actively supports this and arranges depot tours and lorry rides for its fans – it even had a fan club shop for a period in the 90s in Carlisle.
So, there you have it, whether it’s our own cars, or an HGV we’re never going to drive, the majority of us love naming our vehicles. Why? Because they’re part of the family and we love them, that’s why.
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