“What’s in a name? A lot”

I’ve been rightfully accused in the past of sending too many emails that were somewhat “cheesy” in nature to my friends while traveling and working in different cities. I swore that this time it would be different as I traveled to Australia for work for a few months. Many suggested the same answer to me: “well, Jeremy, you should write a blog.”

At first, I scoffed at the idea. I always though that having a blog was something for only computer geeks. The blogs that I came across and actually read were primarily written about Access and Excel questions when I can’t figure something out at work, and the occasional stop at a Gator football recruiting website. If I was going to start a blog, it would have to be a good name. Without a witty name, there is no chance for witty content and you all would be stuck with bad emails that probably came too often.

I started to think on my own for potential blog names, and I couldn’t come up with something good enough. “Gator in Australia” – lame. “4 months down under” – who wants to read that. “Summer in Sydney” – no repeat visitors on that site.

When I hit a roadblock in the naming (and was consumed by packing until 1 am the night before I left), I decided to turn the naming contest to people with more humor and intelligence than me. The suggestions came in many forms – from the slightly suggestive to the particularly descriptive. Below are the best suggestions, with the contributor in parentheses.

“Australia: Where the men are men and the sheep are afraid” (Lynn)
“Blokeback Mountain”, “Read this; talking to me is too expensive”, “Jeremy’s blogaroo” (Nick)
“Gator meets croc”, “A gator in the land of crocs”, “The gator meets the land of crocs” (Bob)
“It’s Oz, but where’s Dorothy?”, “Australia: It has a huge red rock”, “Australia: it teaches you to dance”, “Throw a ‘roo/croc on the Barbie with Jeremy”, “Don’t wear Gucci’s in the Outback with Jeremy”, “Australia: the real America” (Lee)
“Florida Gator Down Under”, “American Gator in Oz”, “Florida Gator Bloke in Oz”, “The Tasmanian Gator” (Gary)
“Airmail was too expensive”, “Because my handwriting is hard to read”, “That’s what Sheila said” (Connor)
“Put another post on the bloggy”, “Jeremynotreally-homosexualblog.net” (Kevin)

Hopefully the final blog name will encourage you to visit the blog at least once or twice over the course of the summer. Thanks to the brain-trust who submitted, and I promise I won’t hit you up for ghost-writing over the course of the next few months.