What is in a boat name…?

By: Noah D.

“I think the act of naming something implies, very simply, that you’re not alone. We give names to things so we can talk about them. Once there’s a word for an experience, it feels contained somehow—and the container has a handle, which makes it much easier to pick up and pass around.”
~John Koenig (from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

The closest I’ve ever been to naming a child was when my sister named her cat. But that did not take too much deliberation, because she had been settled on ‘Dinah’ forever.

But naming something is a significant moment. It becomes the weird, specific sound that comes out of someone’s mouth that someone else hears and connects a brain spark to a real, physical thing in the world. Or it is the little particularly-arranged little squiggles on paper that cause a person to see a massive “other thing” somewhere else. In the case of a dog or a cat, it is something you’ll yell out the back door. In the case of a human, names can set a kid up for bullying or to become the next power player. In the case of a boat, it can either make people raise an eyebrow in curiosity, in indifference, or in commiseration.

I’m fascinated by Plato’s concept of Forms. I had a comparative religious philosophy professor simplify it to a simple (but very Socratic) question: “At what point does a table cease to be a table?” At some point, you will no longer consider a table-like object a table. Maybe it would be too small and be a stool. Maybe it would be too large or have solid sides and become a desk or a counter-top. But whatever you think of as “table-ness” is in your mind somewhere with boundaries (even if they are rather blurry at times).

Naming a boat takes on a slightly different slant. It is already a boat, of course; but when a boat gets a name, it then becomes what everyone else sees even when you (as the owner/skipper/master/captain) are not present. (And, when you are present, you get grouped in by your boat first and the people who are on it only if they know you personally: “Oh, that’s John and Jane of the _______!”) Far be it for anyone to judge, but you must admit, if you have spent any time around any marinas anywhere in the world you will likely see more than one boat with a truly ridiculous name.

So, Lynn and I have settled on a name. If you’re reading this blog, you obviously know that Proteus is written all over the place for no other reason. I’ve been consternating my soul for some time now about it. I wrote long lists of names, hunted the internets, and called up all manner of references and descriptions to come to just the perfect name. Lynn came up with one: “Proteus.”

Before you think there was any strong-arming or argument involved, let me tell you who/what Proteus was. Proteus was a mythological deity of the sea, oceans, and great rivers. But, more than that, he was the shepherd of the sea creatures and keeper of the wisdom of earth. Kings and conquerors sought Proteus because he apparently was so wise that he could foretell the future. To evade his pursuers, he was known to shape-shift into any number of natural things. From this, the term “protean” is derived, with positive connotations of versatility, flexibility, and adaptability.

Of course, the name must be Proteus.

For our purposes, and the reason why it is such a great name for our boat, Proteus is an ideal to aspire to rather than some past conquest. We are expats and travelers, sailors and wanderers. We are choosing this strange life consciously, not because it is convenient or because we can easily afford it – neither actually – but because we aspire to more than just what is “standard” or “average.” We are not taking the path of least resistance or “settling down” into whatever whirlpool sucks us in. We say: “We want to see the world.” So we will go do whatever it takes to do that. The purchase of our boat put every coastline on the planet within reach.

To be completely honest, the previous name of the boat (seen in the banner above) was not horrible. “Oscar” was actually my grandfather’s name. But a number of factor’s precipitated our decision to change the name: one being that the former owners’ new boat’s name also is related to Oscar, and we just did not want to have two Oscars in the same marina. We will be going through the proper denaming/naming ceremony, of course, to stave off any bad superstitions that might hang around. And it is kinda fun to smash champaign onto hulls…

Finally, there are a number of mega-yachts and older vessels around named Proteus. There’s even this weird thing that everybody freaked about when it pounded around San Francisco Bay a few years ago: the original incarnation of the WAM-V was named Proteus. But we were hard-pressed to find many Proteus-es (Proteii?) out there in the registries. We know of one sailboat (a beautiful Oyster 655) sold a few years back, but her name may have been changed since then.

Basically, we just wanted something that, if the boat could speak, she wouldn’t be ashamed or mumble her name quietly when asked. Because we sure will be proud of her. If you look on BoatUS’s Top 10 Most Popular Boat Names list, you might see what I mean. There really are people in the world who spend tens of thousands of dollars on a boat and then paste “Aquaholic” to the hull. Seriously.

For further reading, there are a few more posts around the internet regarding naming boats, but two of the classics are Bumfuzzle’s “How to Name a Boat” post and John Vigor’s “How to Rename Your Boat” or “A Simple Denaming Ceremony” which may or may not have become standard reading for newcomers to the boat name world.

Stay tuned for the results of the ceremony…