CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: WHAT'S IN A NAME? PLENTY

What's in a name? Plenty if you talk to marketing experts. Would you really be so eager to buy Coke if it were called Peppy?

Names provide a first impression, an introduction. That goes for people and even pets.

Sometimes picking a name for your pet can seem a big task. OK, so my family fell a little short in naming our last dog Rosie Posie. Obviously, naming something as important as a family pet should not be left to those under the age of 6.

But then, we didn't know about the pet name generator site from Women.com.

www.homearts.com/depts/pastime/petnam16.htm

This site suggests that your pet's name can speak volumes about you -- your personality, your interests, your style.

You can also compare your choice to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The ASPCA gathered up more than 300,000 pet names. The top 30 appear on this site.

Want to guess the top dog or cat name?

Drumroll please: Max. Obviously, other pet owners suffer from my same affliction -- lack of imagination. Max is followed by Sam, Lady, Bear, Smokey, Shadow and then Kitty.

They also offer the top 10 cat and dog names of their viewers. Great. The No. 1 dog name is Bailey, the name of my youngest child. On the cat side, the most popular name is Bob.

Are they kidding? How many of you out there have a cat named Bob?

To help you in the naming process, they ask you to specify dog or cat and whether you want the name to be distinctly male or female. Do you want it to start with a particular letter? They also ask you to pick a "flavor" from 16 categories such as sports, classic pet names, mythological, whimsical or insulting.

I picked three categories and it offered me 631 suggestions. Who wants to do all this work?

Pets, you say, are easy. Let's pick out a harder kind of name: How about a band? Now the name of a band could really make it or break it.

The Jam.com offers a band name generator at

www.thejam.com/doghouse/generator.html

It's very easy. First, you can pick the type of band: original, world, country, jazz, psychedelic or punk. Then, just hit the "click me" button until you find a name you like. You can also just go for broke and click without a genre.

My first option was Resin Mercy Vaccum. Well, it has a certain rhythm to it, but I think it would be too long for the album cover.

Under the country option, they suggested: 62 Pickets. Hmmm. Better, but not quite. My next general suggestion was Wet Lunatic Iris. Now there's a name you can really forget. Maybe all the good names were taken.

That's not a worry if you're looking for an e-mail address that will get you noticed. There, you can have a free e-mail in the name of any famous person you want.

famous.as

That's the name of this free e-mail service, which boasts that e-mail doesn't have to be boring. Just think about sending a friend an e-mail from the likes of SandraBullockfamous.as or HarrisonFordfamous.as.

Sounds intriguing. Won't Peggy be surprised when she receives e-mail from JuliaRobertsfamous.as.

Hey, if you're going to think big, you might as well go all the way. Now, if I could just figure out how to match her salary.

There are plenty of name sites on the Internet. One interesting one I found was a rather exhaustive collection of one-named people. And you thought Madonna and Cher were unique.

users.erols.com/woysk/allyson.html

It's all listed alphabetical, and you can go from the Greek philosopher Aristotle to the jungle king Tarzan and of course, Zorro, the masked man with a thing for foils.

If you think the one-word name is slightly overdone, the Internet offers lots of choices for baby names. One of the best can be found at Parents Soup. Even if you're not planning a new addition to the family, you can find out what your name means.

www2.parentsoup.com/babynames

You can also start with their list of famous names or vote for your favorite moniker.

As you might suspect, Joni is a nickname for Joan (which is not my name. Legally, it is Joni. Can you tell I'm sensitive?) Joan has a Hebrew origin and means Gracious gift of God. Aaah.

Warning: This is rather addictive. I also looked up my kids' and husband's names and a few hundred friends. Just kidding.

You can also look at their list of 20 most favorite girl and boy names and 20 least favorite names.

Emily tops the favorites for girls, Madison for boys. On the least favorite side: Bertha for girls and Michael for boys. Perhaps the latter was picked because it's so overused. You can also click on each name and find out its meaning.

I also found a business on the Web that specializes in name analysis. They help people considering a legal name change. Obviously, most people don't want to go that far, but the brief name analysis is free and interesting. Scroll down to the 300,000 baby name query and enter your name.

www.kabalarians.com/gkh/your.htm

The analysis sounds kind of like a horoscope. "Your first name of Joni has given you a responsible, expressive, inspirational and friendly personality...." Some of it, however, was so much on the mark it was a little scary.

What's in a name? Plenty, whether it's Joni or Julia. What's your favorite name site? E-mail me at JuliaRobertsfamous.as or clicksemissourian.com.

See you in Cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.