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The Fine Art of Naming Your Guitar


fiveoclockhero

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Do you name your guitars? You should know that there's a right and a wrong way to do it.

 

There are a lot of people, youngsters for example, who don't "get it" and will never name their guitars. To those people, I encourage you to put yourself in the mind of a Depression era Delta bluesman. This will not only improve your guitar-naming skills, it will also help your PLAYING, both in terms of soulful melody lines, writing 50 years worth of material with less than five chords and also playing drunk. If you're doing it right, you'll immediately want to name a guitar after the first woman who cheated on you.

 

Which brings me to my next point: YOU MUST NAME THE GUITAR AFTER A WOMAN. I've seen guys give their guitars dude names and that's missing the point. The guitar should be named after a wimmin who done you wrong. Also unacceptable: naming the guitar after a fictional character or something silly that you might name a dog.

 

Next, you have to choose an old-fashioned ladies name. It can't be anything that a 24 year old would name is newborn baby daughter in the year 2010. Don't call your guitar "Kylie" or "MacKenzie" or "Schuyler" or "Caitlin". The best way to determine if your guitar is appropriately named is to ask yourself: Would a prostitute in a western share the same name? "Mae"? Beautiful! :thu: "Shred God"? Wrong! :poke:

 

To sum up: Rose, Sadie and Shotgun Annie would all make great names for guitars. Brian, Chloe or Balrog would all be bad names.

 

Addendum: Pun names are a bad idea. Guitarnold, Guitarlene and Guitarthur aren't clever, they are non-starters. Full disclosure: I once had a girlfriend named Sadie so I can use that legitimately.

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I've really only named two of mine and one almost doesn't count.

 

This one is named Hannah, mostly because it reminded me of a car I used to own. I don't name cars either, but this was one named by the original owner. Car was an 88 BMW 535is and for whatever reason, this guitar just seemed to remind me of it:

 

DSC_6972a1.jpg

 

And this one is the one I've put more work into than any other guitar... refinished the neck, refinished the body, wired up the pickguard from two different set of pickups. It's a bit orange, but it was supposed to be 'Coral' which many Fiesta Red strats faded to... so I call it Corey. In my defense, I do think of it as a girl's name:

 

DSC_6227a1.jpg

 

Other than that, I just call them pretty obvious names... The Surf Green one is 'Surfy', the red-ish one is 'Red', the acoustic one is the very unimaginative 'the acoustic one'. :lol:

 

I have one really ugly partscaster that I call either 'The ugliest guitar ever' or 'The Mut'. I guess could call my Hamer 'Hamertime.'

 

That's all I got. :idk:

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My first guitar, which is a Washburn WI64, was called "the Bluesbreaker", but I got rid of it because naming property sounded rather silly.

 

LOL so true. :lol:

 

I don't feel like I have to name them, but when i do think of them i think of "The Beast":

 

DSC001721.jpg

 

and "Sol":

 

DSC00069.jpg

 

I plan on getting a Silverburst version of my DC127 w/ floyd rose and naming it "Luna".

 

I don't feel like naming them generic woman names will make me love them more :lol:

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Naming guitars is kind of hot-button topic around here. There's a group of people that get quite snarky whenever the subject comes up. I'm a bit surprised that someone hasn't already wandered in and said something like "Guitars are just wood and wire they're just tools. Would I name my hammer?"

 

 

Anyway the guy that built my guitar names every piece he builds. I haven't really warmed up to the name though.

 

Kimmie.jpg

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Naming guitars is kind of hot-button topic around here. There's a group of people that get quite snarky whenever the subject comes up. I'm a bit surprised that someone hasn't already wandered in and said something like "Guitars are just wood and wire they're just tools. Would I name my hammer?"

 

lol... I noticed. Thanks for the heads-up. But if people can't tell I'm having fun with this topic, then they're the kind of oblivious, self-serious dorks who are probably infuriated by half the topics on this board.

 

Play me off, Lucille...

 

TEE353-XXL.jpg

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Which brings me to my next point: YOU MUST NAME THE GUITAR AFTER A WOMAN. I've seen guys give their guitars dude names and that's missing the point. The guitar should be named after a wimmin who done you wrong. Also unacceptable: naming the guitar after a fictional character or something silly that you might name a dog.

 

You're wrong. SRV had a guitar named Lenny.

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Brian, Chloe or Balrog would all be bad names.

But what if I have an ex-girlfriend named Balrog?

 

Or, perhaps more accurately, what if she reminded me of a Balrog in our fights, and ended up massing more than a Balrog after she ran off with my best friend and got knocked up?

 

(Actually based on a true story)

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Yes I name them. They are often women's names. They are sometimes color references or model references, or puns of one sort of another. Sometimes these categories overlap.

 

It's fun, especially for my kids. And sometimes a name is shorter than the actual model name, by a long shot, for example, "Brownie," versus "Tex-Mex Telecaster Special."

 

Here are my guitars' names:

 

Sonia '60 Duo-Sonic

Brownie Tex-Mex Tele Special

Blondie '52 RI Telecaster

Seven Squier MIJ P-Bass

Ruby DeArmond Jet Star

Blue Ovation Breadwinner

Chrissie Hamer USA Special

Cherie Les Paul Studio DC

Nell Fender Standard Jazz Bass MIM

Joan Gretsch Electromatic Special Jet

Violet

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