Behind the Ironic Column

Some of us would have liked to live in an English country village — one of the ones you read about in stories where houses have names instead of prosaic street addresses.  Rose Cottage, or The Pines, and so on.  So much more interesting that “245 SW Main Street.”  You can put up a sign with a name on it if you like, and you see that particularly in beach or mountain resort areas, but delivery services aren’t going to use it or recognize it. 

People who have boats get to express themselves through the names they paint on the stern — a public declaration of whatever strikes their fancy.  Some of us have personalized license plates as well — figuring out what those mean is a road trip pastime.  And the technology world has given us more ways to express ourselves — a few years ago I had a job that gave me a couple of opportunities to name servers, back before the corporate mentality took over and set boring names as the standard.  We had a whole series of Greek gods and heroes for a while. 

And there’s still one way to declare yourself in a name that’s moderately public — if you set up a network in your home, one of the first items you set is the name.  And if what you’re setting up is wireless, as most of them are these days, it broadcasts that name to the world.

When my wireless connector checks for available networks, I’m amazed at the variety of names it finds just in my neighborhood.  Some are perfectly ordinary and straightforward — they seem to be business names.  Others are clearly some kind of default –”linksys” is the name of the hardware and “2wire” followed by a series of numbers doesn’t strike me as something someone deliberately created.  Nor does “my home” — that looks like a generic suggestion.  But some of the others are kind of interesting.

“Portland Condo” is straightforward enough — if you travel back and forth between locations, this kind of naming means you don’t have to think about where you are.  The one with the apartment building name and number is equally clear, but not very advisable.  It’s clearly a residence, not a business, and advertising the exact address doesn’t seem like a good thing for security.  “Empty Nest” is interesting — is it empty as in lonely or empty as in the chicks are finally gone and I can celebrate?  “Pacific Ocean” is interesting to me because it really has little to do with Portland, but someone moving here from the east coast might think this was a good name for their new location. 

Then there’s the whole set that seem to be someone’s first name.  “Joe,” “Wally,” “Candy” (ok, maybe that one’s not a name) is identification enough for them.  I really like the more imaginative ones — does “GreenAcres” refer to the old TV show or to maybe a retirement plan?  And I just want to send congratulations to the folks who have named theirs “First Home.” 

I’m pleased to see that almost everyone has a secured network so it’s not just open for anyone to poke into.  Some of the ones that are not secured have names that make me suspect they’re deliberately open.  And some seem to be open but if you connect to them you run into an authentication system almost immediately.  These are ones designed for specific company or organization members. You can access them if you have the proper logins.

I like the names and I’m glad they’re not all relegated to some series of numbers.  Numbers are undoubtedly more accurate but they don’t help make a story.  Names help us create a story — whether it’s only for ourselves or for our neighbors and friends.

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