September 08, 2004
Please Help Me Name My (Alleged) New Computer
Months and months after I gave up asking for it, it now appears that the Law School is going to give me, in addition to my MS-bound desktop, a Unix box inside our firewall to use as a ‘sandbox’ to test out various things I think we should be doing in the law school — blogging tools, collaborative drafting and the like. (This development is obviously unrelated to the impending arrival of an outside consultant who is going to evaluate the IT department’s faculty and student support.)
So I get to pick a fourth-level name for it, to sit on top of law.miami.edu. The ordinary naming conventions for law school computers used to be fast cars (e.g. ‘spitfire’) without thought for any trademark issues, and then cities (e.g. ‘Casablanca’, ‘Chicago’) despite the possibilities for confusion with eponymous law schools. I never liked either of those conventions, and I’m told I don’t have to adhere to them.
The ideal name might have at least several of the following not entirely consistent properties:
- Not too long (I type badly)
- Some connection to the law
- Not too serious, or maybe even funny
- Uses a naming convention that could be used for other machines if it catches on
- Not named after a living person
or, it might be so clever it doesn’t have any of them.
My first thought was to pick a legal philosopher, like Fuller (but that’s a bit serious). Or a legal concept, like “tort”, but that’s potentially confusing since the machine won’t be dedicated to that subject, and who’d want to get “bankruptcy” or “domesticviolence”?
Then, I was thinking I might call it “Soia” for Soia Mentschikoff, UM’s late great Dean whose ghost is still invoked at faculty meetings, but I’d worry that some here might find that sacrilegious since I didn’t know her. Then again, by all accounts Soia never worried about what anyone thought, and as a practicing Legal Realist never followed any rule she didn’t like. Accounts differ as to whether she got building permits for the law buildings she built, and the extent to which she complied with them. It’s generally agreed, though, that she never had a driver’s license, although she drove a car.
Posted by Michael : September 8, 2004 03:47 PM | U.Miami | TechnoLinks
Slashdot
It!
What about "litigateway"?
Corny, I know. Sorry. It was the first idea that popped into my head.
For my machines, I've used gems (typically tend to be short), city names (which you didn't seem to like), lately, I've been using Greek Gods.
litigateway is pretty funny though.
Posted by: Greg at September 8, 2004 04:45 PMWhat about famous cases? "dredscott" "marbury" "plessy" "roe"
Posted by: bobcox at September 8, 2004 04:46 PMHow about
"Git-R-Done."
Or
"Juan Rico?"
Fictional lawyers -- rumpole, portia (granted, she only wore lawyer garb as a disguise) ...
Posted by: cafl at September 8, 2004 04:55 PMThis has nothing to do with law, but vegetables and fruits give you A LOT of options, e.g., zucchini, pomegranate, sweetpotato, fig, rutabega, swisschard, cherimoya, and so on.
But on the other hand, it might make people hungry.
Posted by: Tom at September 8, 2004 05:10 PMIf you want short, you can't beat one letter names: b, c, f, and s come to mind. Two letters: at, by, in. Then there's all the in-laws: mother-in, father-in, daughter-in, son-in, sister-in, and brother-in. There are plenty of words to go with law: common, canon, public, lynch, gag, blue, natural, lemon, leash, etc. What about murphys, mendels, ohms, bells, greshams, boyles, etc?
Posted by: pedant at September 8, 2004 05:15 PMName them after hurricanes which have actually hit the school.
No, I'm not joking or making light of the disaster, I'm from the coast of Mississippi, where the use of the name "Camile" shot up thirty years ago. Not too many "Georges" lately, but a name like that would be fine for a webserver.
And there'd be no chance of confusion, as they are all first names.
Posted by: Max at September 8, 2004 05:21 PMWell, it depends on how many there will eventually be, but if it's only a few:
fafnir
giblets
mediumlobster
Movie quotes and titles: IamThe, AboveThe, Martial, BeyondThe, Murphys (good all by itself without a theme). There are more. IMDB is your friend.
Posted by: Nom at September 8, 2004 05:34 PMThe Barons who signed the Magna Carta were called Albini, Bigod, Bogod, Bohun, Clare, FitzRobert, FitzWalter, Fortibus, Hardell, Huntingfield, Lacie, Lanvallei, Malet, Mandeville, Marshall, Montbegon, Montfichet, Mowbray, Percy, Quincey, Roos, Saye, Vere, and Vesci.
Okay, you may not need 24 servers. (And yes, there were 25 Barons, but two of them were Clares)
Posted by: s_bethy at September 8, 2004 06:12 PMsegue
poker
espin
crispin
jambalaya
I think that warships ought to be named after legal-constitutional concepts. Would you rather be attacked by the "John Stennis" or the "Carl Vinson" on one hand, or by the "Unreasonable Search and Seizure" or the "Clear and Present Danger" on the other?
For your machine? Marshall, of course...
Posted by: Brad DeLong at September 8, 2004 06:53 PMWhat popped into my head as I read your post was:
"The only possible name for a bosun's cat is Scourge."
Yeah, if you're not a rabid Partick O'Brien fan you probably won't get the joke, but I thought it was funny.
Posted by: NJG from NYC at September 8, 2004 07:25 PMshort law-related words: "dicta" "qed" "res" "seisin" "palsgraf" "marbury" "scotus" ""cert" "certdenied"
Posted by: arthur at September 8, 2004 08:33 PMMedium Lobster.
To your limited preception, It would seem to have no connection to the law.
To your limited perception.
Posted by: Jon Moyer at September 8, 2004 10:31 PMHow about oxymorons as a naming scheme? There's a never ending supply. The only problem is they tend to be long.
Rumpole.
Posted by: hedgehog at September 9, 2004 12:21 AMNames of "detention facilities" in the war on terror. Their nicknames are generally short (GIs have to say them a lot). They're starting to become somewhat related to the law (slowly). Although not really funny, the government is certainly not taking them seriously. There are dozens from which to choose and the number keeps expanding. And they're not named after living people (except the possibly apocryphal Camp Rumsfeld). You could have gitmo, abughraib, cropper, bagram, bucca, and many, many more.
Posted by: Mojo at September 9, 2004 01:10 AMWhat about obsolete crimes: barratry, maintenance, lèse-majesté (though Ashcroft's Justice Department is probanly working on reintroducing this).
I liked the barons and the jurisconsults - Trebonian, Grotius, Blackstone, Teitgen, Kelsen ...
How about famous lawgivers - Hammurabi, Moses, Draco, Solon, Mohammed, Napoleon, Godwin, Murphy...
or
Who, What, I-don't-know, yesterday, today, tomorrow and I-don't-give-a-darn
Posted by: Njorl at September 9, 2004 08:37 AMYou could call it "George W. Bush". Both him and your computer will be obsolete 6 months from now.
Posted by: Romdinstler at September 9, 2004 09:55 AMGreat suggestions, thanks to all.
"Medium Lobster" is obviously the best choice, but too many of us here are of too limited perception to enjoy it.
"Litegateway" would not fit a Dell.
So far, my favorites are Soia, dicta, barratry, Murphys, and Marbury. Tough choice!
Posted by: Michael at September 9, 2004 11:47 AMwhy not go with greek mythology, as a naming convention that is elegant and replicable.
firewall is "apollo," etc.
as a test box...and the possible origin of a new program/method/whatever,
can there be a better name than: chaos.law.miami.edu ?
it's not the most amazingly original naming convention, but how many influential legal philosophers
are there anyway, compared to, for example, Amazon warriors only, who number 82+.
"soia" is maybe a little too touchy to invoke, i think...
Posted by: thomas at October 1, 2004 10:32 AM