What’s in a Name

When I seriously began planning to start up my own blog about food the first hurdle I encountered was naming it. The name is the hook, what people type into Google to find the blog. It must be catchy, unique, memorable and it must perfectly convey the tone and intentions of the blog; all while being humorous, succinct, and clever, and mellifluous if you really wanted to go for the gold. In other words, in the blog-o-sphere, it means everything. As much of a pain in the tuckus as it became, the entire process quickly evolved (and maybe devolved at certain points) into a fascinatingly frustrating, though mostly hysterical, experience.

I appealed to my vast group of friends (many of whom are much more creative and ingenious than I am) for advice. I came up with a few names on my own and ran the potential titles by them, as well as asking for random suggestions, pimping out free time with my shih-tzu, Moo Shu, as a prize for helping me with my dilemma.

I sent out emails with every name my food-idiom addled brain could think up. The replies were priceless.

“Bread n’ Butter…I like it best because it makes me think of money and that’s what you need to have a good dinner in NY.” –Family friend (spoken like a true I-banker)

“I hate Soup to Nuts hahahaha…I feel like that’s suggestive and gross.” –Friend & former co-worker

“Pinch of Salt! Can’t explain it…it simple ‘wowed’ me…well not wowed but it sounded right…poetic, clever, etc. then I thought u [sic] can combine with the nuts one…like pinch some nuts…but somehow I don’t think u’d go for that…” –Family friend

“I like Bread n’ Butter…anything with a ‘ in the title is cool.” –Family friend

“Bread n’ Moo [in reference to our dog, Moo Shu]…Moo n’ Turds” –Useless sister

“blog soup…bon appet-blog…blog appetit [very close to becoming the name if only it didn’t already exist, sigh]” –Childhood friend

“1. After Taste. This is just a cool name. Easy to type and easy to remember, but not so cliched as ‘Bread and Butter’. I like this one a lot. Not as much as ‘Bowl of Sherries’ but I do like it.’ –Co-worker

My colleagues at work were more than happy to help me with my arduous mission. Other names thrown out (and rejected) were “Chewing the Fat,” “Restaurant Weekly,” “Gobstopper something” (thanks Jenny, I appreciate your everlasting enthusiasm), and “Something to Chew on” (apparently it reminded a colleague of mine of either chew toys or a penis…I’ll let you ponder that on your own). There also emerged, “Eat, Drink and Read Sherry” (or my boyfriend’s original variant on the Biblical quote, “Eat, Drink and Be Sherry”) and my favorite, even if it was never in the running, “Sundae with a Sherry on Top.”

After many, many more emails and many unnecessary, MSExcel spreadsheets to tally the votes for the many, many more names I came up with, the clear winner became AfterTaste (by Sherry). It wasn’t the winner by a landslide, but hey, you can’t please everyone and most people had some sort of immediate strong reaction to it (whether positive or negative). So there you have it.