What's In A [Smurf] Name?
Created | Updated Aug 26, 2004
What's In A [Smurf] Name?
Rejoice h2g2 Post readers! Christmas has come early this year!
Not only there is definitely no extract from my future so-called Memoirs in this article, but, also, I can safely announce, after a visit to Challenge h2g2, that
there is an entry on the Smurfs - you know, those cute little blue characters - for potential inclusion in the Edited Guide being worked on right now.
Those of you who have read last weeks article called 'What's In A [Cyborg] Name?' must have guessed by now that, with a title like 'What's In A [Smurf] Name?', this one was bound to have something to do with names being changed into Smurf ones.
My excuse for this one is that h2g2 used to be part of the 'Digital Village' before becoming a BBCi site. So, Village... Smurfs (they live in a village)... There is a kind of connection here,
somehow.
But, most of all, it's good harmless fun...
The Name Generator
It's even more straightforward than for the Cyborg Name Generator...
All you need to do is type a name, submit it and... Loup is, once again, your uncle.
Furthermore, names with more than eleven letters are not excluded with this one and, even so there is a box for first names and family names, you don't have to fill both boxes for the transformation to
work.
You might need this
link though...
My Smurf Name
I went to the site, typed my first name as Loup and family one as Dargent and got a rather cryptic (at the time it was, okay?) Smurf name: 'Stews in His Own Gravy Smurf'.
Once I've got rid of the headache I somehow inherited with the name, I eventually remembered that Loup was not pronounced the same way in English and in French and also guessed (rightly or not) that the name generating, in this case, might be based on how a name sounded... and, well, Loup does unfortunately sound like soup in English, hence, so I thought anyway, the gravy
reference.
So, it was back to square one and I decided to type Lou as my first name instead. I sure got a very different result...
It was... wait for it... 'Full Monty Smurf'!
Others' Smurf Names
Like for the Cyborg Name article, I thought that it would be a great idea to have a go at other people's names and see how they'd look with their new Smurf-like identity...
So, following the same pattern than for the other article, the Post Team got the Smurf Name treatment first:
ShazzPRME: 'Waspinator Smurf'1
Greebo T Cat: 'Queasy Smurf'
Awix: 'Moo Goo Gai Smurf'
Wotchit: 'Groupie Smurf'
Carrying on with the good old Hootoo tradition, but probably going boldly in an area where no-one had dared going twice before, the current h2g2 Italics got, unsurprisingly enough, the Smurf
treatment too:
Natalie: 'Super Absorbant Smurf'
Jim Lynn: 'Britney Smurf'
Jimster: 'Bambi Smurf'
Paully: 'Odoriferous Smurf'
While hoping and praying that I will survive that second excursion into the Editors' virtual offices, I also went back into the far less dangerous area of political names:
Tony Blair: 'Radioactive Smurf'
George W Bush: 'New-and-Improved Smurf'
Jacques Chirac: 'Talk to the Hand Smurf'
Let Us Know Your Findings
Have a try, type your name, your username or even someone else's name/username and, most important of all: don't be shy and do share your result(s) with us, okay?
Post Scriptum
'Imagine my surprise when, after having written the article on the Cyborg Name Generator the week before, I stumbled unto another kind of Name Generator site that might even top up the previous one...
After all, we were talking Smurfs here, not just the average everyday androids.'
Extract from Loup d'Argent's (unpublished) Memoirs.
Oh well, I might still get one out of the two right... hopefully.