People value their personal belongings; it's not uncommon for one to develop an attachment to an object of theirs, but sometimes, a person's attachment is great enough to inspire the decision to provide this item a name.
Named Possession occurs when a character gives a personal name to their belongings (or any random object they've taken a liking to), whether it's a vehicle, furniture, jewelry, stationery, cell phone, etc.
As a rule, Animate Inanimate Objects don't qualify as this trope. Since they're typically regarded as regular characters by the narrative, they tend to have names by default. Plus, "Named Possesion" is possession of an object; sentient/(likely) sapient beings aren't generally just an object one can own.
Giving names to dolls and stuffed animals are usually not examples either, especially those that are originally designed to serve as a child's personal Companion Cube (thus, giving names to these items are just as natural as naming one's pets). However, naming something like a laboratory anatomical model could count. "Official" code names or designations given by the product's manufacturer (e.g., the Soviet Union's thermonuclear bomb, the Tsar Bomba, is officially codenamed Ivan or Vanya) don't count either.
The character may treat their named objects as a Companion Cube (although companion cubes are not always given names), and their obsession with their object of interest could invite Cargo Envy in-universe and/or Cargo Shipping in fanfiction.
Super-trope to the following:
- Named Weapons: A weapon has an official name.
- I Call It "Vera": A weapon is given a nickname by it's wielder.
- Names Given to Computers: A character nicknames their computer.
- Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: A character nicknames their fists.
- I Call Him "Mister Happy": A character nicknames their genitalia.
Compare Lady Vessel, where a ship or boat (or its space equivalent) is treated as female—i.e., being referred to using female pronouns or given feminine-sounding codenames—but isn't necessarily given personal names.
Nothing to do with Demonic Possession, or "named" important characters being possessed. And absolutely nothing to do with people named "possession".
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- The Mountain Rug Cleaning Company makes videos of their in-house service. There's a rotary scrubber with googly eyes affixed to it, and its "name" added to the rotor shield: Dirt Reynolds. It and the power washer seem to be the two most effective tools in their arsenal.
Anime & Manga
- GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class: The Art Club has a model mannequin named Sanae-chan, who is sometimes treated as an individual member of the club. In one scene, Mizubuchi attempts to change Sanae-chan's uniform and tells a male member, Homura, to look away.
- In Kill la Kill, Ryuuko's sailor uniform, Senketsu, is actually sentient. However, it veers into this trope since she's the only person able to properly communicate with him, so it initially comes off as a very lonely girl talking to a piece of clothing to her adoptive family.
- Kindergarten Wars: One of the villains the teachers encounter, Hiromi Maruko, owns a laptop named Brian.
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: To keep with the Theme Naming, their car is called See-through, Panty's panties are named as backlace/backless and Stocking's Stockings are named Stripes I and II.
- Ranma ½: Azusa Shiratori has a habit of taking home any objects she finds cute and giving them French names, from such things as a fish cake from a bowl of ramen to a doll, up to Akane's pet pig P-chan, whom she christens "Charolette". Her other objects have such names as Josephine, Marianne, Francois, etc.
- Sumomo Mo Momo Mo: Tenka has a soccer ball that he named Becky. She talks to him, and he often asks her for advice. She actually gives pretty good advice, too, considering she's a soccer ball...
Comic Books
- Archie Comics: One story has Svenson reveal that he's named the school's furnace Wilhemina, and it is implied that all the other equipment in the boiler rooms have their own names. When the school forces him to retire, all the machines malfunction. Since his replacement can't handle the strange equipment, Mr. Weatherbee eventually convinces the board to let him stay.
Comic Strips
- Knights of the Dinner Table: Bob Hertzog names pretty much every single one of his (numerous) dice. At least, every die that has stood out in some manner. Knowing the behavior of rather hardcore gamers, this probably isn't too much of an exaggeration from real life.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Car," it's revealed that Penny has named the title object "Maybelline" after the Chuck Berry song, which is one of the earliest rock tunes about an automobile.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Chloe names her pipe (no wait, that's a doughnut holer) "Cheshire" after the Cheshire Cat (or Purrloin) because of how Randall was tricked by The Cat to make a doughnut holer business. She also has a softball bat at home that she named "Silver Night" and names her fish-decorated parasol "Riddle".
- The Sponge House: In "The Gift of Honey", a parody of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The Gift of Gum", Lana names a giant ball of honey Sappy.
Film — Animation
- Tank in Surf's Up named all of his surfing trophies.
- Turning Red: Mei refers to her Tamagotchi as “Robaire Jr”, after her favourite member of 4*Town. She also has a much-loved stuffed dog that she calls Wilfred.
Film — Live-Action
- In Beyond the City Limits the nickname of Helena's TV is 'Mr. Happy'.
- In Canyon Passage, Hi's mandolin is named 'Mandy'. He does seem very fond of it and refuses to swap it for a gold pocket watch Johnny offers him.
- Krampus: Howard calls his beloved Hummer Lucinda and bellows her name to the heavens when he finds she's been destroyed.
- In O'Dessa, O'Dessa's guitar, made from a burnt willow tree, is called "Willa".
- In The Singing Nun, the protagonist named her Spanish guitar Adele.
- Torture Garden: In "Mr. Steinway", Leo's prized Bechstein grand piano is named Euterpe after the goddess of music.
Light Novels
- Akane in And You Thought There Is Never a Girl Online? calls her gaming computer at school “War Machine” since its specs are a lot more powerful than what she has at home.
Literature
- Christine: Christine herself doesn't qualify since she's a Sentient Vehicle, but there's the septic tanker truck Dennis uses to destroy Christine, which is called Petunia.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Manny calls his worn-out security blanket "Tingy".
- In Have Space Suit – Will Travel, the main character names his titular suit Oscar and has conversations with it. In one particular case, it even gives him a pep talk as he lies dying on the surface of Pluto. Note that, though it's never mentioned outright, there's no indication that he actually believes he's talking to his suit.
- In one of the High School Musical book series, Poetry in Motion, Gabriella finds a poetry draft that Troy wrote for someone named 'Ariel', and spends a large portion of the book getting distressed over his apparent two-timing. When she confronts him about this after the recital is over, Troy explains that 'Ariel' was the name of the skateboard he owned in sixth grade.
- In Jackrabbit Messiah, Jack hitches a ride with a group of hippies who named their truck Sharona.
- In the Longmire book series, Henry Standing Bear has a habit of naming vehicles after his many ex girlfriends, his favorite being Lola, his 1959 Ford Thunderbird. Walt's daughter Cady ends up naming her own daughter Lola after the car, and several books later when Walt meets the original Lola it leads to a hilarious Brick Joke where he reveals his granddaughter is technically named after her.
- Thanks Truck Kun For Making Me A Trader: Lillyn names one of her mannequins, "Becky".
- Mona and Delilah are the cars owned by Joanna in the Weather Wardens series by Rachel Caine.
- Weetzie Bat: Dirk's red '55 pontiac is named Jerry after Jerry Lewis.
Live-Action TV
- Cougar Town has "Big Carl", "Big Lou", and "Big Tippi". This being Cougar Town, it shouldn't surprise you these are rather large wine glasses of Jules.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Uncle Phil ends up getting into a Hustle over a game of Pool, where he baits the Hustler into upping the ante to get back Wills' money lost, asking for Geoffrey to pull out "Lucille"; Phil's custom-made collapsible Pool Cue.
Phil: Geoffrey. Break out Lucille.
- Friends: Joey names his Barcalounger recliner Rosita.
- In The Glades episode "Honey", Honey is the nickname of a legendary blues guitar stolen from a casino.
- In Good Eats, Alton Brown named his favorite pizza peel "Emma".
- In Happy Endings, Brad reveals that he's named his sweatpants 'Karen'.
Dave: You named your sweatpants Karen?
Brad: (Deep voice) I name what I name, man. - Harrow: Harrow's old and battered, but beloved, Fiat car is nicknamed 'Gregory'.
- How I Met Your Mother: Ted and Marshall have an old coffee machine that makes coffee that tastes rusty. They named it Shockey because it electrocuted them every time they plugged it in.
- Jessie: A Running Gag with Bertram involves his rather unhealthy attachment to all of his kitchen utensils, treating them like close friends and naming each individual one.
- Otoya from Kamen Rider Kiva gave the name Bloody Rose to his violin.
- In The Latest Buzz, Michael names his fancy new desk 'Betsy' (just before he has to return it).
- Leverage:
- MythBusters: The Build Team also occasionally names the devices/props they build to test their myths, such as Lucy the Moosey, a 600-pound rubber moose replica that they built to test a myth about animal/motor vehicle collisions.
- On NCIS, Abby calls her mass spectrometer "Major Mass Spec." It seems to be her favorite lab machine.
- Sam Hanna of NCIS: Los Angeles calls his father's '70s Dodge Challenger "Charlene". In the big Crossover with Hawaii Five-0, he dubs Danno's Camaro "Winifred".
- Dwayne Pride of NCIS: New Orleans calls his Colt Python "Charmaine".
- The New Avengers: In "Emily", an enemy agent whom the trio are searching for in Canada leaves evidence of their identity, a handprint, on the roof of a classic car, whose owner has nicknamed "Emily".
- New Tricks: Brain calls his prized bicycle "Matilda".
- Parks and Recreation: Tom owns a Roomba whom he's attached an iPod dock to, and subsequently named it DJ Roomba since it can play tunes as it vacuums.
- Sesame Street:
- Zoe has a pet rock called Rocco.
- One episode reveals that Elmo named his red pacifier Reddy.
- In one "Ernie and Bert" skit, Ernie says he calls his bathtub Rosie because he always leaves a ring around it.
- In Supernatural, Dean's beloved 1967 Chevy Impala doesn't have an exact name at first, but he often calls her "Baby" which eventually becomes her name, demonstrated by the eponymous bottle episode. It is considered a real cast member by some fans, appearing in almost every episode (aside from a brief stint in season 7). Additionally, it has been given a name by the fans: "The Metallicar".
- On Sweet/Vicious, Ophelia refers to her gigantic six-foot bong as "LeBong James".
- Teen Wolf: Stiles inherits his mother's beloved blue Jeep which he names Roscoe.
- In an episode of the sitcom Unhappily Ever After, the mother gets a glass table, which she makes everyone call Sheila.
Music
- Many famous string instruments, especially any built by a member of the famous Stradivari family, have unique names. The Other Wiki lists some
.
- Angelspit call their modular synth 'The Middle Finger Of God'.
- Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne's band has a bunch of these. His white and black bullseye Gibson Les Paul Custom is The Grail. His red-on-natural bullseye Les Paul Standard is Red. His Confederate flag Les Paul Custom is The Rebel (his guitar tech has another name for it, The Tetanus Special, thanks to the large number of rusty bottle caps nailed to it). His black and green camouflage bullseye Les Paul Custom is Stormin' Norman. His orange and black spiral pattern Les Paul Custom is The Buzzsaw. And to top it off, Gibson gave him a few guitars from early on in his signature guitar run and he named them after Yankees based on their serial numbers. Number 15 is Thurman Munson, Number 4 is Lou Gehrig and Number 5 is Joe DiMaggio.
- Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath calls his prized Gibson SG-copy "The Old Boy", and his first Gibson SG "The Monkey", thanks to the monkey decal on it.
- Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa has a huge collection of guitars, many of which have names such as "Spot", "Runt", "Magellan" and "Principal Skinner".
- Eric Clapton:
- Blackie, is the combination of three Stratocasters. He took his favourite parts from each one, including a black body.
- Brownie is another Stratocaster named for its two-tone sunburst finish. Brownie appears on the cover of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos, and was his main guitar at the time.
- Tom Cochrane names all his guitars after hockey players.
- The Decemberists' "Apology Song" is about losing a friend's beloved bicycle, which is named Madeline.
- Bo Diddley's guitar, the Twang Machine.
- J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. has a particular acoustic guitar that he's named Martin - thus, his solo acoustic live album was called Martin + Me.
- Vadim Pruzhanov of DragonForce plays a keytar named "Batman".
- Rory Gallagher's Stratocaster, supposedly one of the first bought in Ireland and his lifelong favourite instrument, was simply called "The Strat".
- Billy Gibbons' Pearly Gates. Miss Pearly Gates. It is named after the car Gibbons sold and used the proceeds to buy the 1959 Les Paul 'Burst.
- Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia had five main guitars, all of which he named. Alligator, which he played from 1970 to 1973, was a customized 1957 Fender Stratocaster that had been given to him by Graham Nash that he let his guitar techs heavily modify. The next four were all built especially for Garcia by luthier Doug Irwin, including the famous Wolf and Rosebud guitars that were his main instruments for most of the 1970s and '80s, respectively.
- Green Day leader Billie Joe Armstrong's "Blue" - his first guitar which he still plays today.
- Also, A 1950's Gibson Les Paul Junior named "Floyd". He states that this is his favorite guitar.
- Though not name per se, Woody Guthrie was famed for having "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" on the body of his guitar. In tribute, folk singer Donovan had a sticker that read, "THIS MACHINE KILLS" on his guitar.
- Kirk Hammett is the current owner of Greeny, named after its original owner Peter Green. It is a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, famous for its tone due to a reversed magnet in the neck pickup. In 1970 Green sold it to guitarist Gary Moore. It passed through the hands of several collectors before Hammett bought it in 2014. All along it has been known as Greeny, and is renowned among electric guitar players. Gibson and Epiphone issued replicas at various price points, all referred to as Greeny.
- Albert King called his Gibson Flying V "Lucy".
- B.B. King named each of his guitars Lucille. According to King, early in his career, a fight broke out in the club he was playing at. This fight quickly got out of hand, the aggressors knocked over an improvised kerosene heater, and a fire started. Naturally, everyone immediately ran out, but King had left his guitar behind in his haste. Realizing that he couldn't afford to replace it, he reentered the burning club and retrieved his instrument. When he learned that the fight had started over a woman named Lucille, King decided to name all of his guitars in the future "Lucille", "to remind myself never to be that stupid again." Several guitars have had the name, including a signature model with the name. King also famously refused to ship Lucille in a plane's cargo hold; he would buy two seat tickets: one for him and one for Lucille.
- This is likely why a number of examples on this page (such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air above) use Lucille for their named weapons as well.
- Until it was stolen, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page played a black Les Paul Custom. The model was known as "Black Beauty". Since then, his number one guitar has been a Les Paul sunburst known simply as "Number One". He named another Les Paul "Number Two". This had more to do with him having an easier time to separate them since they were set up differently. A similar thing was done with the numbers on Pete Townshend's Les Paul Deluxes in the '70s.
- Yngwie Malmsteen almost always plays cream-colored Fender Stratocasters modeled after his first guitar The Duck, named for the Donald Duck sticker he put on it as a teenager. He still plays The Duck from time to time.
- Shirley Manson owns an orange Fender Stratocaster named 'Rita'
- Brian May's guitar, the Red Special. May hand-built the guitar with his father out of wood from an old fireplace and has several unique features.
- Kim Mitchell has a "Partscaster" guitar that has seen many modifications, named "Blue".
- Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead calls his Rickenbacker bass "Rickenbastard".
- My Chemical Romance:
- Supposedly, this was originally the idea for Danger Days album. Instead of Killjoy names, the nicknames they selected were going to be the names of their rayguns.
- Rhythm guitarist Frank Iero used to have a guitar named Pansy.
- Naming of instruments isn't just for guitars. Sax player Bobby Keys (most famous for playing with The Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker) had names for all of his saxes. His main one was a tenor sax named "Elmer".
- Willie Nelson's guitar, Trigger.
- Murdoc Niccals' bass guitar, "El Diablo", which was in fact given to him by the Devil.
- Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave calls his super-customized guitar "Arm The Homeless." It's written on the face of the instrument, in big red letters. He also has a customized Fender Stratocaster called "Soul Power."
- Raymond Scott named most of the instruments he built: "Karloff", "Bandito the Bongo Bandit," etc. Of course, he needed names like that so his employees would know which one he was talking about, since telling them to go switch on "the one with all the knobs on the top and the buttons—no, to the left—down—right" would get in the way at ol Manhattan Research Inc.
- Ed Sheeran names each of his guitars, as well as his loop pedal (Chewie Monsta II)
- The Sisters of Mercy always call their current drum machine "Doktor Avalanche". The Doktor has been swapped out a few times for newer models over the last three decades.
- Devo Spice apparently named his Atari "Heather".
- Bruce Springsteen's Esquire, Excalibur.
- In Bruce Springsteen 's song Youngstown, the moniker "sweet Jenny" does not refer to the protagonist steelworker's girlfriend or wife, but to Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. blast furnace named "Jeannette", which was demolished in 1997.
- Lindsey Stirling names each of her violins. She has a Roth violin called Excalibur, a stunt violin for videos called Ingrid, a carbon-fiber violin called Nero, a blinged-out electric called Cleopatra, and an "LS"-monogram-shaped violin called Paris (after the city that gifted it to her).
- Steve Vai has names for the various prototypes and one-off guitars Ibanez has made for him. Most notable is his go-to guitar for almost twenty years, Evo, and Evo's bastardized-Charvel predecessor from his time with Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth, The Green Meanie.
- Eddie Van Halen's striped guitar, Frankenstrat. Eddie, by his own admission, didn't really know what he was doing when he threw all the parts together. Turned out just fine. The black-and-yellow striped guitar Eddie is holding on the back cover of the Van Halen II album was called "the Bumblebee". The guitar was placed in the casket of Dimebag Darrell Abbott of Pantera and buried with him.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitars. The most famous is First Wife, also known as #1. Others include Lenny for example, after his then-wife who gave it to him.
- Former Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden has a 1959 Les Paul called "The Beast".
- Mason Williams's guitar (which he named a song after, too), $13 Stella.
- Neil Young's primary guitar, an old modified Gibson Les Paul, is called Old Black, in reference to the refinish colour. He has another guitar named Hank since it used to belong to Hank Williams.
Podcast
- The Weekly Planet: James and Maso have named their backup recorder "Record-o Montalban," after actor Ricardo Montalbán for no particular reason.
Professional Wrestling
- Frank Stone referred to the Future Of Wrestling Heavyweight Title belt as "Goldie White" and sometimes called it "her".
- The New Day had a trombone named "Francesca".
Video Games
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons: A random comment from Flick at the Roost reveals he calls his self made black, spike-studded bug catching net "Bügnir".
- From Interstate '76, we have Taurus' car "Eloise".
- In Matchington Mansion, hunky carpenter Jack calls his hammer Claudia, which he first mentions during one of his many Ship Tease moments with Tiffany.
- The Sims
- The Sims 2: All sims with the Knowledge aspiration own a ball with a face and mortarboard named "Prof. Von Ball", which they pull out and try to "learn" from whenever they suffer aspiration failure.
- The Sims 3: The Fast Lane Stuff pack introduces a mechanic that allows sims to bond with their cars as they drive them. When the relationship is raised high enough, they get the option to give name to their car. However, sims with the "Vehicle Enthusiast" trait can immediately name their car without needing to build up relationship.
Web Animation
- In Homestar Runner Marzipan's acoustic guitar is called "Carol".
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: As part of Bob's habit of talking to inanimate objects, he does occasionally name them. In "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal", he names the turkey Lance.
- Curses! (2023): Margie named her private alleged plane "Old Rufus", and is quite fond of it. She never refers to the plane by anything other than its name, talks about the plane in male nouns as if its an actual living thing, and seeing her plane in danger is one of the few things that can genuinely unnerve her.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: Edd has a cactus named "Jim".
- Fireman Sam:
- Each of the rescue vehicles has its own name, even having Celestial Theme Naming. The main fire engine is called Jupiter, Penny's rescue tender is called Venus, the main Ocean Rescue boat is called Neptune, etc.
- Trevor calls his ukulele "Marjorie".
- Jade Armor: Lan Jun's cellphone is named "Celly" and her new bike is named "Siclara".
- Legends of Chima: Laval owns a training dummy he calls Sir Punchalot. Lavertus has a similar one he calls Sir Kicksalot.
- The Loud House:
- The Louds call their van Vanzilla. In "Vantastic Voyage", Lynn Sr. briefly replaces it with a different van he calls Veronica, and in the road trip arc, Rita gets an RV the Louds call "Camperzilla".
- Leni calls her favorite mannequin at the clothing store where she works "Tanya".
- Lana has a toilet auger she calls "Big Bertha" and a bucket she uses as a toilet called "Old Sloshie".
- In "The Price of Admission", Lincoln, delirious from lack of sleep, calls his pillow "Todd".
- In "Coupe Dreams", Lori wants to buy a car she calls Lydia. After buying Mr. Grouse's car, she calls it Eliza.
- In "Bummer Camp", the Louds’ paternal grandfather, Leonard, also has a bucket for a toilet that he calls "Frank". Lana is quick to call it "Sloshie Jr." when she finds out.
- My Friends Tigger & Pooh: In one episode, Tigger is lonely due to not being invited to a party, so he gets a leaf, a stick, and a rock and names them Leafy, Sticky, and Rocky.
- Molly of Denali: In "The Qyah Ice Classic," a tripod is placed on ice and the town holds a contest to predict exactly when the ice will break. Based on a dream he had, Tooey names the tripod "Timmy."
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In "Party of One", Pinkie Pie gets so sad over her friends not coming to her party that she loses her mind. She then gathers up a lot of inanimate objects to be her new friends and gives them names, such as calling a sack of flour Madame LeFlour, calling a rock Rocky, etc.
- In "Horse Play", it’s shown that in addition to her usual confetti cannon, Pinkie Pie has an extra-large confetti cannon that she calls Big Bertha.
- Maud Pie has a pet rock named Boulder.
- Maud’s boyfriend, Mudbriar, has a pet stick named Twiggy.
- Applejack calls her hat Tallulah.
- Flurry Heart's favorite toy is a stuffed snail that she calls Whammy.
- The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In the episode "Shovel, Shovel, Toil, and Trouble", Gopher gets a new shovel that he names Lucille.
- The Powerpuff Girls (2016): The supervillain, Packrat, is a delusional, talking rat-man who keeps any inanimate object resembling a girl as his "girlfriend". In "Little Octi Lost", his girlfriend is a dashboard hula girl bobble-figure he calls Olga, because its stand has that name written on it, but he loses Olga in the climax of the episode. In "Strong-Armed", he has a new girlfriend: a doll he calls Rita, because the doll’s box has Rita written on it.
- The Real Ghostbusters: In "Banshee Bake a Cherry Pie", Egon calls his computer "Marsha".
- Scaredy Squirrel (2011): Scaredy has a potted plant that he calls Richard.
- The Simpsons:
- ** In "Bart Gets An F", Mrs. Krabappel refers to her grading pen as "Ol' Red."
- In "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part II", Willie exhorts his tractor, "Pull, Duchess! PULL!!!"
- In the earlier "Whacking Day", he confided to this same tractor, "were it not a violation of God's law, I'd make you my wife."
- In "Mona Leaves-a", Homer wields a cinder block on a chain he calls "The Defender".
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- "Bubble Buddy" reveals several background characters to have given names to inanimate objects, for instance, one guy named his set of keys Boo Boo Keys.
- In "Sentimental Sponge", Patrick is shocked that SpongeBob is throwing away a rock with googly eyes taped to it, which he calls Pete.
- In "The Gift of Gum", Patrick names a giant gumball "Gummy".
- In "The Great Snail Race", Patrick has a pet rock named Rocky, which inexplicably wins the race.
- In one episode, SpongeBob buys a soda-drinking hat and names it Hattie.
- In "Nature Pants" and "The Pink Purloiner", SpongeBob's jellyfish net is named "Ol' Reliable".
- In "All That Glitters", SpongeBob calls his spatula "Spat". However, he calls it "Fifi" in "Little Yellow Book".
- StarBeam: Season 3's Tricksy, a fairy who loves playing pranks and can switch objects around, names the wand that channels her powers "Wanda."
- On Stōked!, Broseph's favourite long board is named Angelina.
Real Life
- Richard Hammond of Top Gear (UK) was mocked by his co-hosts when he referred to the car he was driving as "Oliver" (which wound up becoming Hammond's Companion Cube).
- It's not uncommon for players of Collectible Card Games to name their decks, particularly if it is a particular archetype. On the other hand, oblique or nonsense names allow you to refer to something and not give away too much about it to opponents who haven't seen it play yet.
- Naming electronics, computers in particular, seems to be a general geek thing. Of course, most modern OSes specifically support computer naming for good networking/management purposes, but many geeks take it further by using a personal naming scheme that's standard across all their stuff.
- Sometimes people (or IT departments) name their computers after ships, or after places (Often, naming the desktop/tower machines after places, usually stationary bases, and portable machines after ships, perhaps naming handheld devices after aircraft which are smaller than most ships).
- There is one joke about a former IT guy naming the company servers after famous poets and a new guy joins the company after he has left. The new guy sees that one of the servers is named Homer, gets the wrong idea, and any subsequent server the company acquires ends up named after The Simpsons characters.
- When the Vatican developed its own website in 1996, the first three servers installed were named after the Archangels Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael.
- One of the first Apple PCs was called the 'Apple Lisa', presumably named after Steve's daughter Lisa Jobs. The acronym 'Local Integrated Software Architecture' was Backronym invented after it had been named Lisa.
- Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo had a pattern of naming the succession of servers for the webcomic after girls from Kanon, and his laptops after Haibane Renmei. This is taken to an extreme end in a few of the omake, depicting the comic server as a female persocom just sitting in the colocation center, who gets kidnapped.
- Jeff Darlington provides a really good example.
- Garth Graham named his computer "Alice". In Comedity, Alice is a Robot Girl.
- Registering an Amazon Kindle allows you to name it.
- Apple products, such as iPods and iPhones, when first plugged into a computer and thereafter, offer one the opportunity to "name" the device.
- Michael, the first Sherman delivered to Britain as part of the lend-lease program.
- Atari designers would name projects after female coworker's, ex. "Candy" for the 400. The Atari 2600 is the lone exception with "Stella" being taken from the name of a bicycle.
- Being the network administrator of a Wi-Fi hub tends to allow you to give it a name to appear as on other's devices. Averted, as most people either leave the default code, give it a silly name like 'The Bat Cave', or at least a handful of occasions when neighbours used them to passive-aggressively snipe at each other.
- Common in hospitals with multiple pieces of computer equipment, such as one ER that named their ultrasound, bladder scanner and C.O.Ws (computer on wheels) after fictional robots including R2-D2, C3PO and Optimus Prime.
- Nicknaming vehicles:
- In NASCAR, race teams and drivers would give names to their multiple cars. Jeff Gordon, for example, gave his racecars names starting with the letter B, including Boomer, Backdraft, Boo, Beavis and Butt-Head, Blythe Baxter, Bunnicula, Brooke, Bullseye Brookie, Beth, Bethany, Backbone, Backburn, Black, Blue, Blythe, Beauty, Beezus, Beatrice, Britney, Brittany, Borge, Bowser, Barney, Billy, Buford, Brandon, Brad, Bryan, Brian, Brett, Bryant, Butterfly, Beautiful, Benny, Benjamin, ballet, ballerina, Ben.
- In Formula One,
Red BullFerrari driver Sebastian Vettel gives his cars girls' names. During the 2008 season while with Scuderia Torro-Rosso, he named his STR-Ferrari car "Julie." The following season when he joined Red Bull Racing, he named his first RBR-Renault car "Kate". When Kate was wrecked following the Australian Grand Prix, the team gave him a new one. He found this car to be faster and more aggressive, so he named it "Kate's Dirty Sister". In the 2010 season, his first car was named "Luscious Liz". When it turned out the chassis was unrepairable and got replaced, he renamed it "Randy Mandy". In 2011 he named his car "Kinky Kylie", 2012 "Abbey" (no relation to The Beatles's album Abbey Road, reportedly), 2013 "Hungry Heidi" (after Heidi Klum), and 2014 "Suzie". Upon moving to Ferrari, the tradition was duly kept. His 2015 car is "Eva". In 2016, he is going to name another of his cars "Stylin' Maddie". Vettel got the word of "Stylin'" from one of his older daughter's Girl Tech PC accessories, Stylin' Studio, because she uses it to email her digital homecoming makeovers to him via his cell phone (along with "Maddie", a character on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody). His older daughter is about 16 or 17. Her name is Sara Vettel. - There are numerous Volkswagen buses with names.
- Famed golfer Bobby Jones named his putter "Calamity Jane".
- British Paralympian Hannah Cockroft calls her racing chair "Sally".
- In Patti LuPone's memoir, she mentions that she called the tuba she played in the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, "Irene".
- The tunnel boring machine digging the SR-99 highway tunnel in Seattle, WA is named "Bertha", after Bertha Knight Landes, the city's first female mayor. Also appropriate since the machine is the largest of its kind ever built.
- Similarly, the borers digging the Central Subway light rail extension under and through San Francisco's Chinatown are nicknamed "Big Alma" and "Mom Chung" (after local notables Alma de Bretteville Spreckles and Margaret Chung).
- The boring machine digging the first stage of a tunnel that will connect the polyhalite mine near Whitby to the processing plant at Teesside is called Stella Rose, having been named by a local schoolboy who won a competition.
- Similarly, the borers digging the Central Subway light rail extension under and through San Francisco's Chinatown are nicknamed "Big Alma" and "Mom Chung" (after local notables Alma de Bretteville Spreckles
- Blast furnaces have traditionally been named with girls' names, as they give birth to iron. The four British Steel blast furnaces at Scunthorpe bear names Bess, Anne, Vicky, and Mary - after the four English queens: Elizabeth, Anne, Victoria, and Mary.
- The English Civil War cannon "Humpty Dumpty", the weapon that may have inspired the nursery rhymenote .