The Naming of a Blog

I promised I would write about the naming of this blog, and that I'll do.

Did you know if you search Amazon.com for the term "baby names" you'll get 9703 results? Even typing in "naming your baby" returns 126 results.

Naming your blog: 4 results
Blog names: 103 results
Neither of these sets of results deal specifically with naming your blog.

With baby names you can find books with lists of 50,000 to 100,000 names. You can find the "best" or the "very best" or the "complete" or the "perfect" or the "everything" or the "ultimate" baby naming book. You can find the "town and country" baby name book or the "wizard" that will walk you through the process.

You can find the latest trends in baby naming, such as antique names, foreign names, surnames, meaning names, or make-it-up names.

No such help with blogs.

Blog names could really use some help, too. I won't name names, but there are some real stinkers and very few creative, inspirational, or even cute blog names. Being the slightly compulsive perfectionist that I am, I needed the very best perfect ultimate everything blog name for my blog. Not too specific or limiting, not too obvious or obtuse, memorable, worthy of me.

I wanted it to reflect the idea that it is about critically thinking about life around us and peeling away layers of spin for the inner kernel of truth. I considered "Counterspin" but it is too popular and obvious.

I considered something grandiose or explicit, like "Critical Thinker's Corner" or "Critically Yours" or something else that ultimately felt too critical.

My original idea was to include an image of Rodin's "The Thinker" to signify the inspiration for my blog, namely thinking. I immediately thought of the name "Rodin's Muse." I figured something inspired Rodin to create this famous piece of art. Why not give a nod to some temporal paradox of some kind and assume it could be my blog? When I searched the web for the phrase, I was surprised to find out that he actually had a muse whose name was Camille Claudel, so I threw that name out too.

Then came the birth day of my blog. I tried a few things, but they were taken. I don't even remember what I was thinking that day, but I think I tried things based on "Thinker" and "The Thinker" but whatever I tried that day was taken already.

Update from the future - I found the scribblings where I was exploring other names. Counterspin, Reality Check, Critical Think, and Why? were some of the others.

The more I tried to avoid Rodin's Muse, the less progress I made. I didn't want to go down the road of just picking something off the cuff. So I fell back to Rodin's Muse which I pretty much wanted anyway. It does serve several purposes for me.

It pays homage to my personal inspiration from and respect for The Thinker.
It pays homage to Camille Claudel.
It includes a double meaning for the word muse, and I always love the clever use of words.
It even includes a double meaning through the pronunciation of Rodin, since it is pronounced the same as Godzilla's compatriot Rodan and had I thought longer I might have chosen "Rodan's Muse" instead.

So, it works for me. I hope to have less trouble when I end up naming my children. I'll certainly have more help. I'd love to hear blog names you think are particularly clever or memorable.

Next time, the unveiling of rules for Extreme Ungame.