As Name Your Car Day returns today we've looked onto the phenomenon, what people name their cars and why.
To mark Name Your Car Day we're holding a competition on Instagram. Head over to the Arnold Clark Instagram page to be in with a chance of winning £100 Amazon vouchers and a personalised car name sticker, the competition is running until 31st October 2015.
Sometimes Scenic, Focus or Corsa just won’t cut it. You might feel your car needs an actual, human name with some thought and personalisation behind it, to make it feel more like part of the family.
Buksie, Rosy, Bullebak, Adam, Rachael, Jaffy, Findlay, George, Eunice, Ken, Penny and an aptly named brown VW Beetle– dung beetle. All of these are names given to cars. Some have reasons behind them - others are just names that fit.
Whatever car you own, whether it’s city car, SUV or saloon, you might find yourself choosing a name to fit your car type. There are other naming factors at play too – for example you might choose a name according to your car’s manufacturer, model name, registration plate or colour.
Famous names
Of course there are plenty of famous, named cars too.
Like Herbie the VW Beetle from the 1968 film The Love Bug. Herbie was named by his owner, Jim’s housemate and friend, after his uncle Herb whose boxer’s nose wasn’t dissimilar to Herbie’s bonnet.
Or KITT - of which there are two. One is a 192 Pontiac Trans Am from the original 1980s television series Knight Rider, which was an acronym for Knight Industries Two Thousand. The other is a 2008/09 Ford Shelby GT500KR which featured in the 2008 remake of Knight Rider where the acronym stood for Knight Industries Three Thousand.
Greased Lightning, the 1948 Ford De Luxe from the 1978 film Grease was named due to its special features being… ‘auto-matic, system-matic, hydro-matic!’
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a customised Paragon Panther. Author Ian Fleming (more famously known for his spy thrillers about James Bond) took inspiration for the name of the car, originally featured in the children’s story written for his son, from the 1920s series of English racing cars known as Chitty Bang Bang due to the noise they made.
Eleanor was the name given to a customised 1971 Ford Mustang Sportsroof in the 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds and a 1967 Mustang Fastback (depicted as a Shelby GT500) in the 2000 remake of the film. The cars targeted for theft in the film are give female code names, other names include Barbara, Laura, Pamela and Kimberley.
How do you name your car?
Some people wait until they get to know the personality of their car before they decide on a name. Others just seem to know at first sight. If you’re stuck for inspiration there are even online name generators that will pick a name for you. (Just a warning the site may make you feel a little travel-sick.)
Why do we name cars?
In psychological terms the act is known as anthropomorphism (the act of giving human characteristics to nonhuman entities.) According to Physiologist Adam Waytz there are three reasons why people ‘give a mind to a non-human entity.’ The object may resemble a human in looks. They might wish to understand the behaviour of the object by making it familiar. Or, they may wish to provide a social connection (to make up for a lack of real social interaction.)
Further research by Adam Waytz et al suggests that if you give a driverless car a name you are less likely to place blame on the vehicle following an accident. This could suggest that by naming our cars we see them as people, even as members of the family. It could make us better drivers, or take better care of our vehicles.
Have you named your car? If so what have you called it and why? Let us know in a comment below.