When I decided to start a new blog one evening, I thought long and hard about what to name it.
Naming a blog is kind of like naming a kid. It should be a thoughtful process, where one bares in mind the following guidelines:
1. The name should be somewhat meaningful. "Blog #2", for example, would be succinct but only meaningful if you were one of my three former readers (Hi Mom!). I do recognize that giving your kids a standard naming convention based on the order of their birth is actually customary in certain cultures, so doing the same with my blog wouldn't be SO unprecedented. But I live in Boulder, Colorado, and not Indonesia, and as such, in my best Heidi Klum voice, that option "is out".
2. This one applies more to naming a kid, but I think we can stretch it to the blog-o-sphere. A name should be such that when singing the "Banana Fana Fo" song (you know the one), at no point should the singer happen upon a swear word, like "fuck". This means that my husband's life long dream of naming a son Tucker was immediately shot down the day he mentioned it. Sorry, dear.
3. The name shouldn't be so elaborate and/or stupid that the reader (or, the classmates) has no idea where the hell it came from. So, while catchy, I decided that naming this blog Five Chicks and a Bitch was probably not the best idea. Most readers would assume that this blog was about a gaggle of aggressive lesbians, and not infer that I have five hens and a beloved female Australian Shepherd.
All of this decision making happened at cocktail hour, and I found myself with the munchies. And I got to thinking about British pubs. Pubs always have the best names, don't they? Short, not too wordy, sometimes silly, and typically meaningful in some historical or personal way. George and Dragon, for example, after St. George's epic battle with a dragon. Pig and Whistle, is another one, which according to wikipedia is "a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon saying piggin wassail meaning "good health". And so with these in mind, I landed on Thorn and Petal for myself. It felt strong, simple, and related to my last name: Rose.
My husband agreed that it was a solid name, and that a blog by any OTHER name, would not smell as sweet. So supportive was he, that he told me if I was serious about blogging, he'd build me a website. He looked up the official dot com domain (not on a Blogspot template) of my chosen pen name and told me that it was available. Huzzah! Without much thought at all, I remarked that I was surprised that no enterprising florist or clever pub somewhere had snatched up the domain by now. What luck.
Something that you should know about my husband: He is one of those people that is fabulously and frustratingly good at almost everything he tries. The guy knows how to learn, and to try, and to adapt, and it shows in every avenue of his life. There are, as with everything in life, some very tiny exceptions. There are a handful of words that no matter how many times he writes or types, he spells incorrectly. For example, his past tense of "to hear" is always spelled as though he's referring to a flock of cattle. Also, he misspells one of his very favorite exclamations with a super charming yet unintentional holiday flair. So, it is not unusual to get a text message from him during a great day at the office with a big HOLLY SHIT!!
It was only after I paid for my new blog's dot com name, that I realized that my husband's search for ThornandPetal.com was misspelled. Instead what I purchased was www.ThornandPedal.com. As much as I'd like to blog from that name, please refer back to rule numbers 1 and 3 above. Outside of the context of this funny mix-up, the name doesn't really make sense. At least with Thorn and Petal, the reader can assume that I like flowers, or that I will be blogging about the duality of experiences that make up life. (Both are true, but the latter will likely only be done in sarcasm.)
So, if you happen to know, or know someone who knows, an entrepreneurial bike-tire-repairman, please let them know the domain is available. They can have it for a song. Meanwhile, I'll be here, on Blogspot, regaling my three readers with tales of my chicks. And my bitch.
