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We are closing on a house this week (yay!), and it really sucked — I mean the whole process. Every time I’ve been in the house, I feel like I still can’t get attached to it, and it doesn’t actually feel like it is going to be OURS.So, I am thinking of naming my house. Has anyone else named their house? Is this too antiquated, or will I confuse folks? Or are we bringing the funk to the suburbs? (Good Rick James funk, not gross funk.) -Bethany
After returning from a trip to the American south, and falling in love with the tradition of home-naming, my best friend’s mom, Meg, decided to name her house. A little while later, Meg came up with “Conejo Cottage” — an apt name, since they have a lot of pet rabbits that live there.
Although, when asking her for a photo of her home name plaque, Meg told me that she’s changing the name of the house to “Duckington” since there are more ducks than rabbits now… AND it was the name of the estate where her mother was born on the Chesapeake Bay.
Although, I think the more modern-day version of house-naming is to come up with a location tag on Instagram. My favorite modern home names: “Chateau du Fatty Bandits,” “BooMilk’s Pleasure Nest,” my parents’ home in Maui that we’ve named “The Shack,” and my cousin’s home in Maui called “The Moocher’s Hotel.”
All this to say, from England to the American South, and now in the heart of Los Angeles and the Hawaiian islands, people have and do continue to name their homes.
Have you named yours? What do you call your pad?
I’d love to hear more about how people who buy a house make it their own. My husband and I moved into our home in June, and I still feel about as much emotion about the place as I did about the apartment we were renting. Part of this is because things are still in boxes, and part of it is going to just take time I know, but I’m still curious if there’s any tips anyone has.
Getting boxes unpacked was one of the first things I did. And Paint. I focused on unpacking one room at a time and working out exactly how I was going to use the space according to me and what I wanted helped the collections of rooms become my home. Painting was the other one for me. Once I had painted my walls bright and autumnal yellows instead of the sell-house-fast beige, and I had a few of my pictures etc up) it really felt more like my space, somewhere I could call home.
All of my furniture was free to a good home so nothing really matched. For this I grabbed the colours of all the chairs (two shades of red, brown, white and gold) and made quilted throw cushions for each chair so that the cushions brought the ridiculously mis-matched chairs together to make my living room more homely.
DEFINITELY peruse this tag: http://offbeathome.com/tag/new-home
I can’t even tell you how much paint helped. Our house was a horrible yellow when we bought it and I HATED it. The neutral relaxing colors we painted made a huge difference.
Also, and this is going to sound so weird, but go away for a few days. Come back and you will realize that your house smells like you. Maybe I am just way too smell oriented but once I realized that our house smelled like us, that’s when I finally felt really at home.
For me it’s when I stop noticing the smell of the house. When I walk into someone else’s house, there’s always a distinct smell (often cats… I can smell a cat a mile out) but usually I don’t notice my own home’s smell when I walk in unless something has recently been baked/the trash needs to go out.
The house my aunt and uncle owned back in the 1970’s was known as “The Hippie Hotel” because they and all their friends were hippies.
My ex-husband and I referred to our (rented) house in Montana as “Wit’s End”. He wanted to build a house we’d name “Rabenschloss” (raven castle).
My fiance and I jokingly call our place the very politically incorrect “The Big House” because it’s the only two story house on the block and we share a corner with our landlord’s equally large residence. Our landlord is also VERY Southern and we live in Florida.
I would to like to have an old Victorian on the river that I can call “Air Moss Manor”.
What’s politically incorrect about calling it the big house?
My husband and I totally named our house that we bought earlier this year “Anna Sun” and yes, it is after the Walk the Moon song of the same name. It makes sense since all the lyrics describe the house and our current financial situation (This house is falling apart/ We got no money but we got heart). Plus it has the upside of being a really catchy song to work to.
Our current house, which we bought last year, is called Pride Rock 🙂 so of course we also have a Lion King-themed WiFi password!
The house I rented with my best friends a few years ago was The Shrieking Shack because as a friend group we identified strongly with the Marauders. The similarities are uncanny, really!
Oh my gosh, I think that for me WiFi network names are the best contemporary form of home-naming. Ours has been Inn of the Last Home (reference to the fantasy series Dragonlance) forever. We have moved a lot since we’ve had that network name, but we always keep it and its associated router. So when we move into a new place, that wifi name is always waiting to greet us. It actually does help a new apartment feel more like home.
Come to think of it, if I ever were to name a home and not just a wifi network, it would probably be Inn of the Last Home.
WiFi names are SOO the modern way of naming your house.
Also, have you ever been a little freaked out and/or impressed by your neighbours’ WiFi? One had called it “Pretty Fly for a WiFi”, which was awesome.
Another neighbour in our apartment block has had the WiFi name “I hate Obama” for about six years. I have never figured out which one, and I don’t know how to ask…
We have a neighbor whose wifi is called “PatsyLouTheUnfuckableWench” which has mystified me for ages.
Finally, driving through another part of the state I discovered who Patsy Lou was:
http://www.patsylou.com/
But I’m still confused about the unfuckable wench part. I also kinda want to know which neighbors it is, heh.
Haha, yes, I love a good WiFi name!
I’m sure my friend’s WiFi name freaked out his neighbors at first, because it’s “FBI Surveillance” lol.
My wifi is always “Flux Capacitor” ^_^
hehe, i updated my friends’ wifi to FBI Surveillance Van 3 and didn’t tell them…it was hilarious how panicked they were when they noticed. took them awhile to figure out it was my doing, even though i was clearly sitting on their couch laughing my ass off with my laptop in hand.
a fun game to play: if you’re ever traveling in a city/otherwise densly populated area, keep your wifi settings open and see what comes up! as for neighbors, there’s a new one on my list at home called “dicktits.”
Oh… yeah… wifi names can work too! We actually named our wifi “oHanaSolo” — Ohana (meaning family or an extra living space) + Han Solo. I never thought about calling our home that, though.
Also… apparently all my neighbors have named their space “ATT ###” laaaaaaaame.
While living abroad we had the wi-fi name of “Drone Surveillance”. I thought it was funny because it’s a very American thing in a country that mostly saw Americans as both secretvive and hyper aggressive.
Not a home name, but just fun with wi-fi names.
Our WiFi is NSA (plus some numbers). My husband loved the thought that maybe it made some neighbors think twice…
We lived in an apartment for 12 years and never locked our wifi. Then new neighbors moved in upstairs and we immediately got three emails in a row warning us about illegally downloading pornography we definitely didn’t download, so our wifi network is now called “stopdownloadingporn.” I hope I never feel compelled to call my house this. :b
I love scrolling through the local Wi-Fi networks in whatever area I’m in. It’s always a laugh. I definitely agree that naming a Wi-Fi network is a lot like naming your house. I names my Wi-Fi Larklight after the house in a novel of the same name of which I am very fond.
I definitely want to name the house we one-day end up buying. I’m kind of consconsidering painting my front door at the house I’m renting (it’s townhouses and my parents own this unit so I could paint if I clear it with them) and I think if I did that I might paint the name of the house on the door. It would be fun and would help people find my house in my row of beige and brown townhouses. Plus it would annoy my nosy neighbours who are always ranting about curb appeal and property values of ugly, 30 year old townhouses. (There is no curb appeal. It’s just not going to happen.)
Since our last name has a French origin, I call our place “Chateau (Lastname)”. But not often. Like, I put that in for Location when making Facebook events, and that’s about it, lol. I do love the idea of naming homes, though.
Yeah, we have a Russian surname, so our place becomes Doma [surname] a lot. Our first apartment was Crickhollow, named for where Merry and Pippin live for a while after the War of the Ring in Lord of the Rings. We keep meaning to name this apartment, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Our last name is very English sounding, so we call ours “(lastname) Manor”! It sounds good with a fake British accent.
My last name is Rising, so we call it “the House of the Rising Sun “
Our last name is French too and my parents house is Chateau {name} (since visiting family tends to spend the night there) and my husband’s and I’s is Chez {name} (since we have started hosting more meals). I really need to get a sign to hang above the door.
I also love Wi-fi names, dorms are an awesome place for hilarious names!
Naming your home is totally a thing in my family. Most of the family houses have a very personal name that everyone uses. Like, “I’m headed over to The Craig” instead of “I’m headed to visit my aunt.”
We’re still thinking up a good name for the house we just bought. The house I lived in for years with my old roommate was named ‘The Girl Cage.” It had a large front porch that instead of screens or railings had security bars wrapping all the way around complete with locking iron security door. Right after moving a random dude walking by saw us sitting on the porch and said, “Ha, you guys totally look like you are in the girl exhibit at the zoo.” We laughed and The Girl Cage was born. The name stuck and everyone used it, even the landlord adopted the name.
I could write my own post on house names in our social group, how they started and how they’ve been selected over the years. But to keep it brief I will simply say that at our housewarming party we put the three names that were being considered on a white board, gave a brief explanation of the reasoning behind each one, and let everyone there vote. In the past names have occurred more organically just from common use, been selected by a friend, or been chosen intentionally by the inhabitants.
But pretty much every house in our social group, rented or owned, has a name. For roommate situations it’s more practical than cute. “Let’s go to Andrew, Anie, Moose, Austin, and Mat’s house” is just a ridiculous thing to say (but if you leave anyone out, they will be all “I live here too!”)
A group of my friends live above an ice cream shop, so we refer to their apartment by the name of said shop. It’s very confusing to the uninitiated when we say we’re headed to The Scoop to drink some beers…
Our previous house was on Burrow Dr. so in true Weasley fashion we referred to it as… “The Burrow”. Our latest is on Rott Rd. and (my daughters think) it looks like a teeny castle so it’s been referred to lately as “Casterly Rott”. Noticing a trend here? Yes we’re geeks and yes we love the fantasy genre 🙂
We also name our cars, some clothing, appliances, pretty much everything is fair game actually. My Jeep is named “Honey” (due to color) but is actually a “boy” so there is an elaborate back-story about how embarrassed he gets around the other Jeeps when we say his name out loud. We also park next to other Jeeps and pretend they are on a date while we shop, eat dinner, whatever. We have to console him on the ride home many times when we come back and notice that his date has left, so sad. Poor little guy.
My friends and I also name our cars! My current car is named “Sugarscoot” after one of the carts in MarioKart since its Toyota Yaris and my husband says it drives like a go-kart.
I totally name my cars! My old mini was called “Julius,” because he was orange. That guy I married’s car is called “Medusa,” because she’s hideous to gaze upon, and his old motorcycle was called “El Diablo” because it broke down all the damn time and caused nothing but pain and suffering. My new Subaru is called “The Su-beast.”
We’re not really “naming things” people, even my cutesy name-bait Mini doesn’t have one….but we did recently name our new truck “Tommy”
….’cause it’s a green (Ford) Ranger.
http://www.powerrangersonline.org/datafiles/season1/profile-mmpr-tommy.jpg
(I veto’d “Dragon Zord”)
We name our cars, too. We’ve had a ’92 toyta pickup called Thor, a ’99 VW beetle called Thumbelina, and a ’03 VW station wagon called Otto.
I really want to name our newly-purchased land, where we’re going to eventually build a little house. I’m really enjoying hearing everyone else’s names…good brainstorming material.
My husband and I always point out our “friends” in a parking lot – people with the same make/model/year as our car. I thought we were the only one to park our car on a “date”. 🙂
We point them out everywhere, and my husband waves as we pass! That said we have a not very common variant on a reasonably common car, so he gets super excited. And I may have sent him photos when I parked next to an identical one a while back…
My old car was like that, it had a very distinctive hood that was only made for 1 model year. Now that I’ve sold it, I am seeing my special variant everywhere. I must subconsciously miss that car.
I can’t tell you how much I loved your comment!!
I don’t really name things, but I call appliances I particularly love, like my Dyson vacuum and my stand mixer “the beast”.
My car is known as “little car” – sounds cuter in my language – and I talk to it and particularly love when I can park it next to its older version (it’s a Mini, they look like mom and child, or older granny and young hip niece)
A friend of mine had named the vacuum she had in her student’s apartment Hagrid, because it was big and loud 🙂
Before my partner officially moved in to my place, we called his apartment The Golden Dragon. It was an homage to How I Met Your Mother, when Lily goes back to her apartment and discovers it’s been turned into a Chinese Restaurant.
A group of friends had a townhome they named the Klan house because the three girls that lived there all happened to have names that started with K.
heheh. we nicknamed my core group of friends “Tito & the KKK” in high school for this reason.
My roommate and I adopted the last name Queerlisle and named our apartment Queerlisle Manor 🙂
I just feel like this is so very Anne of Green Gables inspired. How she named the lanes and the house and the tree outside! Love it!
Our home name came out of a misunderstanding of a musical festival called “Sled Island” on my part. Now we invite everyone to parties at “Fabulous Slut Island”. If it’s not “Fabulous”, it’s not at our place. All the rooms have names, too. The balcony is “Harlot Bay”, our bedroom is “Virgin’s Folly”, and the bathroom is “Round-Heeled Falls”. The only room that still needs on is the little room with the TV for movie-watching parties. We’re big fans of taking a joke WAY TOO FAR.
I love your room names, they’re brilliants 😀
My fiancé and I just bought an adorable, old bungalow in a small Ohio village (so far from a town or a city with its 2,800 residents!). The previous owner’s great-grandfather built it in 1928, which means it has a whole lot of–what some would call–character. (Yep, I am one of the some.) With all its character and charm, the house is less than 1000 sq ft with every bit of it needing something. I fell in love with it the moment I walked inside during the first showing, despite its light lilac interior paint, (currently gross) bathroom, and (slightly scary) kitchen. My fiancé and I are huge dorks, and decided that our little home needed a name. Her name is Rookwood Manor because we both like crows and chess. We thought of different titles for her, but Manor seemed the best, since we jokingly claim to rule the village. We even named our yard. Because The Manor sits on top of a small hill, so the yard is a sort of little valley; however, “valley” does not suit The Manor or us. We named it Wolfsbane Hollow. I have always told my fiancé that he is my werewolf. Not because I am a Twilight fan! Goddess no! I study mythology and legends, and I have always enjoyed the various werewolf legends. The joke is that there are not any wolfsbane plants in the Hollow because I had to pull them all up so my fiancé would not be repelled! There is a small back deck that overlooks the hollow, making it very romantic.
My children thought it was weird at first, but they have already started calling our home “The Manor.” We have just started repairs and renovations, as we have had it for less than a month, but cannot wait to move in and finally hang the sign I made so that everyone knows the home’s proper name.
My husband and I live in the “Port of Berkshire” which came about because he loves all things pirate, and we live really close to the Savannah River in Georgia. It’s also grown into a kind of offshoot of a local LARP group… they dress up as knights on their property, then when we visit with the “crew” (our rowdy friends) it’s a Pirate Invasion. We haven’t done custom location tags but we do have a secret facebook group for our closest friends where we post about events we’re hosting at our house that we don’t want widely known to our entire Facebook feed (my mom does not need to know how much I love rum). Our friends have used it for posting photos from parties, sharing decor ideas with us, and planning outings to Ren Fests and the like.
Totally a normal thing in the UK; generally new house names are subject to approval by the local council, so it’s not always possible to choose a cool one (there are a metric ton of “Rose Cottage”s and “[local thing] View” and so on, as well as “The Old School” and “The Vicarage” the length and breadth of the country), but sometimes you can sneak some awesome in
Bah, I wish I’d had access to that site when we were naming our house. I was curious how the British did it, but couldn’t really find any info (I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask the Homies). Now our house is Cair Paravel, which is super appropriate for tons of reasons, but my one regret is that it is not a name unique to our home since we took it from such a popular book.
We bought our house a year ago this Halloween. I have two little girls, who were 1 and 3 at the time. While we were waiting to hear back on the house, we would drive past it and say “Hi”. We decided to name the house “Ramona” and it really helped with the transition. The girls now wave at the house as we leave the driveway, saying “See you soon, Ramona! We love you!”.
How timely! My wife and I JUST closed on our first house last week. (We won’t be moving in for a month or two, after some renovation is done.) Lots of our friends have named their homes for use as social gathering spaces (House K, The Warren, Chez Kitty, Meerkat Manor, Wonderland). We went with a theme important to us for the name, and bounced between Honeycomb House and The Hive for a while. Finally, we figured we could call it The Hive socially, and use Honeycomb House (and Honeycomb Academy for our future homeschool) as the overall property name. And we started a Facebook page for it! (linked)
We have yet to name our house. But before we met my husband bought a black Kia and named it Bumblebee. I will have to ask him if he would like to name the house….perhaps something vegan or comic book themed….
I named my house Cape of Dreams, hence what I call myself on this site. The name came from the fact that the style is Cape Cod, and it had been my dream to buy a place of my own. Since then, I got married, adopted a dog and a cat and am hosting an exchange student from Germany. I am no longer on my own, but lots of dreams are still coming true in my little house.
There’s an air of Anne Shirley about it. 🙂
I fear that if we named ours it would have to be something like “The Dog House” since its most distinguishing feature is that you get mauled by a bunch of dogs when you walk in (only two, and they’re not that big, but they manage to FEEL like a bunch of dogs.) I refuse to accept that name until we have at LEAST three of ’em ;-P
I like our house, but it’s basically just a little 40’s ranch house that feels like it should be owned by an old lady (and was, til we bought it)- not a lot of things to name it after. We do have a room in the basement we call “the bunker” though. Because it totally is. 4-foot-thick concrete and corrugated steel ceiling!
Ooh, that’s totally valid — a poly triad (or maybe more of a V?) I knew had a house with approximately 3 dogs, 3 cats, several ferrets, several rats…and I started calling it The Menagerie, and it stuck.
My husband and I lived in a tiny converted garage for a few years and his ex called it the “Dog House” as if that was going to upset us… I thought it was funny that she thought we even cared. Anyway, we called it “The Shed.” It was ridiculously tiny, like 400 sqft…. I always loved calling it “The Shed” although I admit it doesn’t sound terribly cultured or glamorous!
My house, with the previous iteration of roommates, was called Four Corners, because those roommates were from pretty much the four corners of the country. But people moved, as they do, and then I demanded we rename it The Beaver Lodge because of the elderly lab mix named Beaver. Really, it’s his house, we just live there.
My named our house in the 70’s Windsong. My sister named hers Clover Cottage. I have yet to name mine.
When I was in England I took pictures of two house signs that caught my eye. 🙂
Whoosh: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alissadale/9064652318/in/set-72157634166025927
Dragon’s Lair: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alissadale/9064644656/in/set-72157634166025927
I don’t have a house to name, yet, but my parents have named their house “Box Elder Hall.” I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t named, and I think it’s a nice little touch.
My grandparents’ home has been named “Top of the Hill” for as long as I can remember. And after a while, my grandparents even started signing their names as [Grandma/Grandpa] on the Hill.
I’ve named several of the places I lived, including when I was renting, but one of the best things about buying our home was settling on a name that would stick with it. Before we bought a house and I imagined what kind of house I might want someday, I thought the name “The Dillonshire” was cute (my husband’s last name is Dillon), but the house we ended up buying didn’t suit that name, so we settled on Stardust Hollow instead. Many of my former homes have names as well that my friends use when describing situations, like “Oh, that’s when you lived at the Tower, right?” I think it ties me to it as well as making it feel important.