I’m a namer. I name everything. I’m just not happy until something has a name – and when it does, I talk to it, whatever it is.
I name plants. My Christmas cactus is called Della after the woman who gave the plant to a friend many years ago. I inherited her, and she is beautiful. The tiny philodendron I baby at work is called Little Fred. The big plant that arrived there last fall is called Phyllis. Her owner looks at me strangely when I refer to the plant as she. Not to mention when I apologize to Phyllis when I bump into her. At a college where I worked, there was a tree – or huge bush, I never could figure out which – shaped like a big artichoke. I still greet Artie when I go back there for meetings.
Stuffed animals, of course, get names. From my Woodsey the Owl, whom I call Wimsey, after Peter Wimsey, Dorothy Sayers’ suave detective, to my favorite (shh, don’t tell the others!), the white mouse puppet Mattimeo, after one of the Redwall mice, to the moose I got at Christmas named Noel to my newest addition Hedwig the snowy owl, they all have names. When my friend got a beautiful stuffed wolf, she said, “Name him anything but Fred,” He promptly became “Not Fred” forever.
I have two meerkat twins named Suri and Kate. As you may know, another name for meerkat is suricate. My other meerkat is named Kip, after a character in an unpublished fantasy novel. I had described him in the novel and was astonished at seeing the meerkats in the Seattle zoo. “There’s Kip!” I cried. Of course Kip (full name Ankiptis) is much bigger in the story.
So why do I do this? I think it must be my way of establishing order on my world. At any rate, I feel happier surrounded by Ollie the Otter, Worzel the Scarecrow, Oren the bouncing orange bird, Intel the Spaceman, Gundersen the Polar Bear, Digger and Jena the Hedgehogs and all the others, rather than just a bunch of nameless things. Besides, it’s just politer!
