Get in the comments with your own Blanky McBlankface name. Then download my books. It won’t cost you a thing.

Boaty McBoatface was a mildly interesting cultural phenomenon. When the UK’s National Environment Research Council ran a poll to name their new research vessel in 2016, what began as a joke ended up being the most popular name. (Can you think of any other elections where a joke ended up winning?) With hundreds of thousands of votes for 32,000 suggested names, Boaty McBoatface came out on top by a wide margin, winning 124,109 votes, four times the runner-up. In the end this was too important to go along with the joke and they finally named the ship RSS Sir David Attenborough. That’s a good choice given what Attenborough has done for public awareness of nature and the environment.

This reminds me of a similar situation when a territory in the north of Canada was looking for a name and the internet came up with “Bob.” They also let reason override humor and settled on retaining the title, Northwest Territories. It has other names in local languages including Denendeh and Nunatsiaq in Athabascan and Inuinnaqtun respectively. Both Bob and Boaty show that polls are dandy, but not always the best answer for a serious question.

Now it’s the turn of a soccer club. San Diego, California wants to name its entry into Major League Soccer and opened it up to the public. The most popular name so far is Footy McFootyface with two-thirds of the vote. They got it wrong, by the way. It should be Footy McFootface, no “y,” to keep with the form of Boaty McBoatface. But hey, that’s how the language evolves. Somebody’s not paying attention and a little change sneaks in. Something like “The Olde” becoming “Ye Olde.”

That brings us to Bloggy McBlogface, which I thought would be a good title for this post, given the viral, trendy nature of those other two names. Who knows? Maybe it will generate a little traffic for this quiet little site. If it does, I have two requests for my new visitors: First, do me a favor and download my books. They’re free and unencumbered, and people seem to like them. So download them. Take at least one of every format. Then get all your friends to do the same. And so on. Second, let’s see how many names we can make up in the form of Boaty McBoatface. I started with Bloggy McBlogface, now you come up with something. Get thee to the comments!

Thank You.

rjb