That was the name thereof

I have the habit of naming inanimate objects. It's something a lot of people do in a small way--they name their cars, for example. I have named my car. But I have named many other things.

This is in part something I picked up from my grandfather, who had a way, not unlike our president's, of giving people private nicknames. The difference between Grandfather and the president is that when Grandfather gave someone a name, other people started using it, too. For example, my grandmother's name was Lurline, but he inexplicably called her Josephine, and so did many other people.

My habit also stems from the naming of computers, a practice I learned at an office where I once worked. A computer on a network needs to have a name that distinguishes it from other computers, so whenever this office got a new computer, whoever would be using it generally named it. I named mine Conrad, ostensibly after Joseph Conrad but actually after Conrad Bain. My friend Dave named his Kuhn, after the science historian Thomas Kuhn.

I realize now that this new kick of naming things started when I set up a computer network here at the crib. I named my computer Faron, and Ereck named his Cookie. My old computer was named Hank, and I have an external hard drive named Loretta. An old laptop of Ereck's is named The Emerald City, and until I destroyed it by spilling mineral water on it, I had a tiny laptop named CharleyCompaq. And last night I named my Palm device Pac-Man, because it kind of looks like Pac-Man.

I named my truck Red Boy, even though the truck is golden in hue. This also goes back to my grandfather, who owned the truck when he died a couple of years ago. When I was a kid, Grandfather had an Irish setter--red, natch--that he named Red Boy, and this was like Grandfather, to name a thing after its essential characteristic. I loved Red Boy a lot, so the truck's name is at once a fond remembrance of the dog and a gently tweaking tribute to my grandfather.

I hope the naming does not get out of control. Ereck and I have a new bed, and we named it Vger (pronounced VEE-jer), after the omnipotent alien force in the first "Star Trek" movie. We also have named our apartment: Claude, after the culturally snobbish but ultimately well meaning character in the Canadian television series "Degrassi High."