What's in a Name?


When we bought our boat, it was named “Waterfront Property”.   Somehow it did not resonate with us.  Our Islander 33 was named “Maggie Anna” and though we would not have picked it out ourselves, my name is Margaret Anne and it just seemed like she was meant to be ours.  But now we were faced with changing the name of a boat.  Lots of lore surrounds this issue and we didn’t want to start out on the wrong side of Neptune, but we had to change it. We considered:  Wind Dancer (we like dancing and we like the wind),  Wave Dancer (same thing), Walkabout (a nod to my sister’s immigration to Australia), Windtraveler (already taken by one of my favorite blogs)…but when my sister suggested “Well, Why Not?” we knew that we had found our boat name. 

The back story:  Many years ago, when my older brother attended Webb School in So. California he wrote the music for their 1950 High School musical production called “Well, Why Not?”  It became part of family lore because my father helped with the orchestration and my sister played in the orchestra.  When I reread the lyrics which were written by John Pettley they seemed to reflect a lightheartedness that was new to Jim and me.   “Why not sing? Why not dance? Why not dally with romance?  Why not put all of your cares away?  Why not live just for today?  Why not whoopee, Well, Why Not?”   

We became even more sure of the name as we talked about our plans.  Many is the friend who with wide-eyed wonder blurted out “Why do you want to do such a thing?”  “Well,” we said, “Why not?”  And there you have it……


1 comment:

  1. Cool name. Wish we were that clever. We had a list of names posted on our fridge. We would all take turns writing one down when we thought of one and someone didn't like it they would cross it out. After months they were all rejected. So we just named her after the kids. The problem is it sounds like a fishing boat and nobody can say it correctly on the radio.

    Thanks again for the link to the blog. I'll have some reading to do.

    Cheers!
    Paul
    SV Kelly Nicole

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