Hey Duana!

I know this falls out of your usual spectrum of Name Nerding, and I feel silly even asking this because worrying about naming your blog is so 2003, but... I want to write about my opinions on movies (why they matter to me, why they work, parallels, reviews, just movie nerdery). Ideally I would even like it if people read it and took me seriously. Basically, I want to have a blog in the sort of old school sense of the word and I want a cool real name that I won't be embarrassed about in a few months/years.

Everyone I talk to about it just laughs or tells me to make some Tarantino reference, but that seems basic and lame and I'm just stuck... I need help.

Here's what you have to work with:
- I liked MissEnScene for about 2 seconds
- I dug HouseOfYes, in honor of that trashy trashy movie after my own heart
- My real name means God's lamb and I sort of dig lamb puns/religious references surrounding it (also lambs remind me of Mimi and that just makes me happy)
- My favourite movie is Apocalypse Now
- I also really like Total Recall, the original Schwarzenegger one.
- I like one word names (The Toast, Hairpin, those just sound classy).

God, I sound like a pretentious douchebag. PLEASE SEND HELP.

Thanks,
R

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Oh I love this! I mean, I totally get that the naming and deployment of a blog name is, as you say, kind of more of a time when Livejournal was still a prevalent part of the experience, but when I think of the blogs that have endured, they have a few things in common.

1. They’re easy to remember. I have been a huge fan of Tomato Nation for as long as I can remember and that’s something that is made of real, English words but nonetheless stands out. You aren’t trying to remember whether it was cucumber nation or McDonald’s nation or what was that other thing Spurlock did...?

I spend a lot of time evangelizing about blogs to friends, which, conceivably, is what you want for yours as well. And I am guaranteed not going to recommend one that isn’t easy to say and to remember.  This American Life  is easy and unusual enough to remember. HelloGiggles too.

Which brings me to point #2…

2. The blog name tells you what it is. This can be hard because nobody loves a pun like a blogger and there are a lot of blogs called, like “Limpid coral and bright” that could be existential musings on the absence of cashmere or ruminations on how you once dated your own much-younger brother. So stick your neck out. Make your blog about what it’s about, and make the title something that gives people an idea of what you’re doing. Go Fug Yourself is super-successful with an in-joke in the title, but it has a certain common phrase to keep it, you know, in the popular vernacular. Something people would be saying anyway is a good move.

An example of this was the blog Miss Snark. I heard about the blog called “Miss Snark”, I googled it, and I became a fan. It turned out the second half of the title was "…a literary agent", but it almost didn’t matter whether it was about being a literary agent or a sports critic or a foodie. Miss Snark tells me all I need to know. (Ditto Duggars Without Pity. I didn’t say I was highbrow). 

So given what you’ve told me, I would eliminate Miss EN Scene. First of all, the joke mainly works written, not spoken, and I think people speak out loud in their heads when they say these things. I like House of Yes,  and if your name was Jess we’d be saying no more callers. Couch of Yes, if that’s where you watch most of your movies?

Movies and Lamb Chops (geddit? Because you’re a writer, and you have…OK, I know. But HA).

Film Psychologist

The Navigator

R’s Total Recall

I know. Nothing incendiary. But I was thinking that nothing we use now is all that incendiary. The tabs open on my browser right now are SimplyNoise, The Rumpus, Twitter, Ms., Serial (OBVIOUSLY), Go Fug Yourself – all cute, quick, easy to say, but not revolutionary. 

You’re right that The Toast and Hairpin and names like those are quick and easy and snappy-sounding, but they don’t tell you much about what you’re going to read. So if you have a burning desire to call your blog The Chesterfield (which I would totally read) just be ready to have a subheader or tagline that tells people exactly what they’re getting, off the top.

What I wouldn’t do, if I were you, is get intimate with puns. Someone will suggest Girl on Film. Someone will suggest Audience Now. I suspect the time for those things has flown.

Finally, I think there’s a lot to be gained from using one’s own name. A lot of people with "personal blogs" (I know, here we go with 2003 again) wind up writing about a broader set of subjects than they originally intended to, and so if you call your blog “Still More Rebecca” or “Amy on Any Subject” that’s catchy without getting wound up in the inevitability of “Me, Myself and I Read! And Also Watch Movies!”

Definitely let me know!