Boat names fascinate me. Each spring I manage to write at least one column focusing on popular, unpopular, clever, suggestive, and otherwise mundane names that boat owners come up with to identify their prize craft be it a speed boat, sail boat, fishing boat, or floating bath tub.
Name game
Every time I go to the lake, any lake, I always watch for names and try to attach the boat wearing it to an owner.
Every time I go to the lake, any lake, I always watch for names and try to attach the boat wearing it to an owner.
The name game is pretty easy to figure out when the letters give a profession, profound event, or distant wish away.
Something like Right Hook (boxer or want-a-be boxer), Slam Dunk (a basketball junkie), Play Date (duh), Freebie (won it in a raffle), Molar Man (dentist), She’s Gone (recently divorced), He’s Gone (the other half), Mission Fishin’ (charter guide), Dollar Down (Lender), Shock Doc (electrician), and so on.
Some boat names link families and friends together with names like Why Knot followed by several boat names featuring the word Knot — a clever use of a boating term for speed or a rope terminal.
If you think every name has been taken you are right, many times over. But then again, our vocabulary keeps growing.
Some of the more recent boat names are being printed and said in foreign languages, in slang terms, and even in “sounds-like” words or parts of words.
New names
BoatUS, the nation’s largest and most politically connected association of boat owners keeps up with boat names and by doing have produced a most popular list for the past quarter century.
The BoatUS 2017 Top 10 Boat Name list follows beginning with number one.
1. Serenity: No doubt spelling out the utter calm and quietude the activity of boat ownership and activity of boating brings.
2. Seas the Day: A nautical wordplay on the Latin saying: Carpe diem,” taking boating to its fullest.
3. Andiamo: “Let’s Go!” in Italian, a perennial favorite boat name.
4. Irish Wake: Mourning and merry making after the death of a family member or friend.
5. Freedom: Patriotic name that first appeared on the BoatUS Top 10 Names List in 2004.
6. Adiago: Italian for “at a slow tempo” Represents how boating reduces stress in our hectic lives — and apparently in the life of lots of boat owners who spelled it out on their transom.
7. Ohana: From the Hawaiian culture, meaning “family” in an extended sense.
8. Oasis: A fertile spot in a desert where water is found; symbolizes boating ability to refresh and nourish our daily lives.
9. Happy Ours: A clever and playful take on the good feeling you get at the afternoon communal cocktail time. After docking for the day, please.
10. Firefly: Made the list for the first time this year. It is thought that perhaps parents let their kids pick this one and yes, it’s a good choice and a good source because boating fun belongs to the whole family.
