What's in the name?

It was a nice evening. I was feeling accomplished - I finished a draft for a short story.
"Can I read it?" asked my husband, fake enthusiasm in his voice.
"Yes, pleeeezze!"
I love getting his feedback, it's always right on target and mostly very honest.  So, I sat by his side, looking over his shoulder, awaiting the verdict patiently. In a few seconds however, he looked up at me, one eyebrow raised in an exaggerated puzzlement.
"Who is BMP?" He asked. "It can't be what I think it is, because it's obviously human."
Note - my husband is a biologist and BMP does have a meaning in science.
"It's "Big Manly Protagonist"," I answered impatiently. "I haven't decided on his name yet."
His eyebrow hiked up a few millimeters more, but he returned to reading.
Soon though, he was overcome with giggles.
"GFP is talking to PMS. This is priceless," he choked at me.
"What's funny? Genius Female Protagonist is talking to her sidekick."
"Her sidekick is PMS? I never knew PMS is a guy. Now it makes a lot of sense..."
I threw a pillow at him and exited the room, trying (in vain, I might add) to keep the remnants of my dignity.

Naming is difficult. Unbelievably difficult. I spend days and often weeks agonizing about it, and really envy those people who can spew a dozen names off the top of their head and pick one at random. Giving a name is the hardest, most painful thing in my life.

My friends have names for their cars and laptops and their kitchen appliances... man, do they fit! When I connect to the network at work, I see other lab's computers, and I feel bitter envy at how relevant those  names are. There is a Gandalf (it's been dead and came back to life almost magically),  there is a glitchy old thing named Gollum (it's also scratched and really dusty) and there are backup drives Two Towers (actually it's a computer with two hard drives) and Mnt. Doom (the one that crashes every month). And the Boss's laptop is named "My Precious". Considering the cost, it sure is.
My computers are all called Julia, Julia1,  Julia2 etc. in order of their appearance in my life. My car is just my car, no matter how much I wanted to call it something else. My husband gave a name to our home network after I failed to come up with a single idea.

The only thing that I ever named well was our Rumba vacuum cleaner. I called it Dobby. It's eager and hardworking. Sadly though, it is also quite willful and slightly dumb since it gets stuck under the couch, but still always tries to go there, ignoring my carefully set up "virtual walls". It's truly a free house elf.





Few hours after I explained PMS being a Protagonist's Male Sidekick (as opposed to Female), I opened a new file and started writing. It was a new story, about a girl who was  trying against many odds to become a professional figure skater. I've written almost two pages of the story and I knew, it was going well, except for one rather important detail. I referred to her as "she" all the way.  With a sigh, I wrote, CFP on a chapter notes column. Courageous  Female Protagonist. Not cyan fluorescent protein.