House names

[pegkerr]

I have wanted to have a name for my house for a long time. I have known friends who lived at places named things like Toad Hall or Courts of Chaos, and I liked that. It seemed right and natural to honor the place that you live, that holds so much of your identity, to articulate in a well-chosen name what your home means to you. I'd also like a name that sounds lovely. (Remember Misselthwaite Manor?) But I haven't really thought of anything that seems quite right for my own house. We live in a house built in about 1918 (I believe), and it is filled with books and the other accumulated debris of a happy, busy family (where at least one member is a confirmed packrat). It is set on a hill that faces west. There are no trees that are particularly remarkable, and no rose garden (although I might put roses in someday). I do have a cottage garden on the side that is pink, and a vegetable garden in the back.

I spent a little time cruising house names sites today, trying to come up with something. "Swanhurst" was one idea, but heck, I want to move on emotionally from The Wild Swans and after all, there are no swans around here. I have a sneaking love for "Rivendell" (for some reason that speaks to me more than, say, "Lothlorien" or "Meduseld") but I don't know whether Rob would go for it. I should ask. Perhaps there are other place names out of Tolkien I could use. If I had a brook anywhere on my property, for example, I would love to somehow use his beautiful word "Withywindle" in the house name.

On a list of Irish house names I found "Aisling House." "Aisling" means dream or vision. I paused over "Nestledown" for a moment.

But the strongest possibility may be "Gray Gables." Because we really do have them. Kind of nice for a Lucy M. Montgomery fan.

Does your house have a name? Are you pleased with it, or are you hunting for another one? How long did you search for the right one? Have you heard of somebody else's house name that you really liked? What was it?

Edited to add: A sneaky way to get two allusions at once might be Gray Gable Haven (Or Grey Gable Havens. Or Grey Haven Gables). Hmm. Must think on that.

Comments

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Though, as I recently discovered, 'Aisling' = Ashley. And Ashley is such an incredibly popular girls name at the moment. 'Ashley house' could be the name of the next babysitter's club book. :)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I don't have a house, but I have a room, and it's called The Shoebox. It's very small and very crowded with my stuff. When I moved into it, I jokingly dubbed it "the Shoebox" and it stuck. I like it - it resonates with the feeling of my room - cluttered and cozy.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Your post made me think of this quote:

Our house is old, noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books.
--Shirley Jackson, Life Among the Savages

Our house is the House of Red Doors (HoRD for short), and it just sort of happened in the course of househunting. I was writing up our impressions of every house we looked at, and, well, the most notable thing about this house was the bright red front doors. It fits the house, and we're pleased with it (I think). I always wanted to name my homes, but our apartments rarely deserved it until the last one, which was in an old Victorian and had a great deal of Character. The Victorian was easily identified as "Pink House" (although our friends varied it somewhat from time to time to "Rose House" or "Casa Rosa"). Thus it seemed imperative that the Victorian of our very own have a name too.

[laurel]

I think Kevin and I have settled on "Wit's End" and that pleases me somehow. Was Kevin's idea and inspired by an old computer game, which fits us but so does the sentiment behind the phrase itself, maybe. The whimsy, I guess. He suggested it and I knew right away that was it. We'd both been thinking on it a bit casually, but hadn't really spoken any ideas aloud to each other 'til then.

I spent a very long time trying to think of a domain name for my website way back when. And that led to my pondering house names and license plate acronyms and all sorts of stuff. I'm v. happy with windowseat for my website (and weblog and domain) for a lot of reasons. I've been tempted to pull something from Little, Big and often thought it'd be cool to have Edgewood as a house name, but it just doesn't fit this place.

Some things just don't fit. I remember I first tried naming one of my cats "Phouka," but it became clear that wasn't his name after all (he's "Inky" short for "Incarnadine" and there's no way around it).

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

My house is named "Sow's Ear", because when I first bought it my mother was concerned that I would put $50K of improvements into the $35K house and never see the return when I sold. "It'll never be a silk purse, but it could be a very fine sow's ear."

It was the first time that I had given a house an original name (as opposed to previous names like "Stately Wayne Manor" and "The Hotel California"). As this is also the first house that I've ever owned, that feels very natural to me. I recommend that you find a name that makes you connect with your house instead of a house from the Old Country or a fictional land, even if you borow their influences like using an ancient Gaelic translation for "roses someday" or something of that ilk.

House Names

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I don't think I had any house names until I lived with Sue Grandys (where Givonna Frengi & Ken Fletcher live now.) At first we named it "The Permanent Floating Dead Dog Party", but changed it when Chris Conway moved in to "Three Monkey House" (we all had the same Chinese astrological sign, which is why our video production company is called "San Biki No Saru"*).

When Sue & Chris moved out, and Giovanna & Ken moved in we toyed with naming the place "House of Dumont" for Margret Dumont, the dowager empress of a number of Marx Brothers movies. I believe that instead we named it "St. Margaret Hamilton's Church" instead. (Lovely story behind that one, which I may post later on...).

Once I moved to the Linden Hills area I named my place "St. Arlo's By The Lake", 'cuz if anyone would make a fun saint it'd be Arlo Guthrie.
____
*which translates roughly (and we never do anything unless we can do it _nice & rough_) to "Three Monkeys" & relates to the Japense expression, "Even monkeys can fall from trees" - that anyone is capable of doing something REEEEElly stupid.

Re: House Names

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

that anyone is capable of doing something REEEEElly stupid.

Like misspelling Japanese, for example.

[innerslytherin]

Rather prosaic, but our house is called Windy Oaks, because the poplars are very slow to grow here. ^_^ And it's very windy. I do have a little corner of the property, where I've hung my hammock, that's called Gaoth-Sidhe ("Wind Faerie), so there's a bit of the old country.

[eeyorerin]

We call our (rental) townhouse The House of Books (often badly translated into various languages), since there are so many of it, and I was reading about Sumerian names for library keepers and one of them was Mistress of the House of Books.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

This house has never acquired (or inspired) a name, but our previous house was "The Full Catastrophe" from the line in the movie (not sure if it's in the book) Zorba the Greek:

Basil: Are you married?
Zorba: Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man. So I'm married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*Brays with laughter* I like it!

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Hekate House.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time I lived in The Little Green Hippie House.

The house we currently rent is known (in my head) as The Armpit. Or sometimes the Blue Monstrosity. Seeing as how the landlords thought that vinyl siding would be a good idea, and that robin's egg blue vinyl siding would be an even better idea.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When we were looking at houses, this one was The Turtle House because there were little turtles making their way across the grass when we looked at it, heading from the lake behind us to the lake across the way. We were charmed by the turtles, but the name hasn't really stuck.

We could use a household name more than a house name, since we don't all have a name in common, and our friends might find a collective term very useful.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I call the Mrissa family the DuckSpoonCircleBill Ranch Household, because I get the street names all confused every time I head that direction....

...and our house has no name, as we do not own it. But our Household is the Household of Chaos, when it must be referred to.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

The house I share with betnoir and western_slope is now called Rocket Ranch. western_slope is a rocket scientist, and we needed a household name, because with three people the nomenclature of "so&so 'n' so&so's house" gets awkward.

[chamisa.livejournal.com]

It's really cool that you posted this now, because since my husband and I just bought a house at the end of July, we've been really wanting to name it. The thing is, when we were moving, I *did* think of a name that both of us thought was perfect, but now I can't remember it and neither can he. I've thought and thought and thought but whatever it was that I came up with seems to have vanished into the ether.

My husband is into calling it The Burrow, but it's not a very burrow-y house to me, so I'm not too sure about that...

It never occurred to me to look for house naming sites. I'll have to try that out.

Good luck with your house naming. It sounds really wonderful. And how totally cool that it's so old. I love old houses. :-)

[fireflowerlass.livejournal.com]

ooh Withywindle! That's one of my favorite Tolkien words.
I am in college, and I have lots of older friends who live in houses, and they've named them but they're silly but I thought you'd like to hear them!
A bunch of my girl friends live in The Hula Hut/The Igloo which switches with the seasons, a bunch of guys live in the Buff Hut, and more girls live in The Lighthouse. There are more really great ones but I forgot them lol.

And as for your house, anything with "End" like Bag End might be fun!

[pameladean]

David and I have always had jokey house names. Our first Minneapolis house was called Castle Terrabit, and this one is Blaisdell Poly. We never came up with a name for the one in Massachusetts. Of course you know that his first Minneapolis house was Finagle's Freehold.

Eric told us that Blaisdell Poly was his Rivendell, which is without doubt the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me about any of my households, but it doesn't work for the house overall.

Pamela

Households & Home

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I once told my sister-in-law that when people ask me where "home" is I tell them it's the farm she & my brother run. She was _very_ pleased.

The thing I love about it is the silence (unless the milk pump is running...), the wideness of the land, & the wideness of the sky. Weds. night of last week (when I was up for Thanksgiving) I stepped out of Jeff & Carrie's house for a smoke. The Moon was almost full, the sky slightly overcast, like glowing mother-of-pearl, and everything was unnervingly visible.

From over by the creek I heard geese calling, and soon a good sized "V" flew overhead, so low I could hear the wind passing through their wings. An odd, sort of mechanical 'viffsh, viffsh, viffsh...'

House names

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I lived in a house once where one housemate was a serious marijuana smoker (will not give her name on LJ) and we also had a female cat who had not been spayed and consequently had three litters of kittens while we were all there. I suggested naming the place the Cat Drug Inn. It would have caught on, except that nobody wanted to use the word "drug" on the telephone. We then thought about answering the phone with "CDI," except that another housemate was attending Control Data Institute and there would have been confusion. It ultimately didn't get used -- but worth the try!

Nate

[hamsterwoman]

We call my parents' house Bag End. Most of the interior doors have rounded tops, and a narrow, twisty corridor runs the length of the house, lined with numerous doors on each side (very confusing for guests). The overall effect is rather Hobbit-like, which was one of the reasons my mother fell in love with he house, decrepit and leaking as it was on a rainy December morning when she wandered into an open house out of idle curiosity.

Our own house, almost by default, ended up being called Violet Guad. That was/is the name of the family manor in my Magnum Opus (though I have forgotten what "guad" was supposed to mean in the made-up language), and the house we bought has the entryway, living, and dining rooms painted a vivid lilac color, which I love, visitors comment on politely but cautiously, and everyone else in my family hates.

Hmm...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I think I'd love to live in a house named "Idle Curiosity".

[dawn-came-dim.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like Gray Gable Haven. But that might be because my flat is named Wickhaven. I did a lot of fantasial cartography and naming of places real and imaginary when I was a young teenager -- there's a post about that somewhere here -- I'll find and link you to it later. Wick is a word I really liked both because it refers to any dwelling place within a larger community (and I'm living in a real city for the first time ever), and because of its use in The Secret Garden -- living, alive, growing. My favorite fantasy author of the same time (Mercedes Lackey) called the capital city of her world "Haven" -- so it took on a second connotative meaning of center, or hub, in my imagination. So, my open, airy sanctuary in the middle of a bustling, sometimes dangerous, city is Wickhaven -- a place full of light and life in the form of sunlight and candles, potted plants and exuberant cats. And many, many friends.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Wickhaven, that's very lovely! I have a very soft spot in my heart for The Secret Garden because one of the things that piqued my interest in Rob was that I ran into him at a matinee of the movie. I'd known him for a couple of years at that point, and I thought to myself, hmm, I think I want to know about this guy who is an attorney who goes by himself to a matinee of a movie made from a children's book on his day off.

[semperfiona]

My house is called Rivendell. I bought a house-name placard in the UK and posted it beside the front door and everything.

The occurrences have diminished since the popularity of the films, but people used to come to my door looking for the Morales family and ask, "But why did you leave the previous owners' name on the house?" *eyeroll*

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

Do they have signs with the house name? I've always wondered about that. How do people know it's called The Burrow if there's no sign? Plus I want to name my house too! Penguin Place, Penguin Hall, Cat Castle. (daughter loves penguins and cats)

Re: signs

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I think you can have them custom made.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

As I recall, the house in Berkeley that Marion Zimmer Bradley and friends lived in was called Greyhavens. I can email a former resident I'm still in contact with and ask, if you'd like. For all I know, the household is still going.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think you're right; I do remember that was the name of MZB's household.

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

Our house has gone under several names (though never Trespassers Will). When we first moved here we had three white cats, so it was At the Sign of the Three White Cats. Except the sign was imaginary.

After a while, our place became House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. By the time 1,000 seemed to be really low-balling the actual number, we had accidentally started the fish collection, beginning with the huge fiberglass sailfish from the auction. When the collection began to get out of hand, we settled on the current name, House of Unruly Fish.

[fairmer.livejournal.com]

Back to Anne of Green Gables-land... we lived in Patty's Place in college, being Anne fans--and that's where Anne lived while at Redmond.

We haven't formally named our house, but I do refer to it as the Cutler House occasionally, since that's the name of the street... and it's meaningful to me since a great-grandmother's maiden name was Cutler. Makes a connection for me.

[carbonel]

The house I used to live in was called Castle Terrabit when DD-B and Pamela lived there, and no name I could think of would overwrite that.

I've been thinking that I'd like a name for my current house. It's covered with blue-painted wood shingles and dates from the 1950s, which Greg informs me (and I can see for myself) was an unfortunate period in home decorating. I love the bones of my house, and I am slowly remaking the skin and muscle to be more to my taste. (That metaphor sounds vaguely creepy and vampirical, but wasn't intended to be.)