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I can't help but think this article could have used some more polishing. The stats say that there are 101 boats named "Freedom", but if you enter "Freedom" in the search, it shows 48 boats with names including "Freedom", of which however only one is called just "Freedom". That doesn't really add up?!
Also, clicking "Movie/TV" yields a paltry 22 boats, which I think is far too few. E.g. the boat called "USS Enterprise" isn't included. Ok, it could be named after the 1958 aircraft carrier, but I would say the odds are far greater that it was named after the Starfleet ships. Then again, I can understand why "Starlight Express" is included under "Music", but why also all other boats with names containing the word "Starlight"?!
On the first point, I think it's a search of boat names, not boats - they're deduplicated.
Err, the Enterprise has been a ship name for a few hundred years, quite a bit before Star Trek was ever conceived.
Agreed. The „foreign phrases“ category only contains entries starting with A or B
My boat's called Floating Point :)
Better than Overflow.
If I had a boat I would totally steal that (and wait for other nerds to strike up conversations).
If I had a boat and always dropped anchor at the same spot, regardless of tides/weather/etc., I'd name it Fixpoint.
I draw the line at public points.
Epic name
This reminds me of a girl I knew in college who worked as a contracter for a book publisher.
I was surprised to learn that one of the most common types of books people submitted were dairies of their sailing. Like, "we sailed to this island and there was bad weather then we sailed to this other island".
Apparently they'd get a manuscript like this once a week or something. Not sure what the market is like for books like that since I don't think I've ever seen one in a book store.
The "Boat ownership by income" is interesting, although easy to misread at a glance.
7% of boat owners earning under $25k is of course very different from 7% of people earning under $25k owning a boat.
I'd love to see an actual chart of boat ownership at income levels, it would read quite differently I'm sure.
I've always thought Unsinkable II would be a good boat name
How is there not one boat named "Sunk Cost"...
The article mentions a dataset of names given to people in the USA. This is a fun name explorer WASM based on that data. 811 people in the USA have named their baby 'Diesel': https://docs.malloydata.dev/malloyyo-babynames/name_explorer...
It's at the point I can tell, not only was AI used for this (cool, not a big deal, I use it too!) But I can tell Gemini was used here.
How can I tell? Cuz the last thing it designed for me used the exact same fonts, color tones, border sizes and spacing for buttons.
Maybe Gemini needs a higher default temperature.
Anyways, cool data gathered here tho! Thanks for sharing
Also never forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface
That's the public data. I can tell you I've worked in this industry for 20+ years and run probably one of the biggest sites in this space selling boat graphics. The most popular name is actually "Aquaholic" ;-)
I bought a sailboat in 2022 and sailed all over the caribbean from florida from 2022-2025. I came across a lot of funny boat names.
My boat was not among them sadly as I was serious about mine.
Fishizzle, Boat Float, Unsinkable II, Knot for Sail, etc.
Naming things is hard, it's best to pick a theme and stick with it.
A Columbo family mafioso I grew up near used to be in a never-ending competition with the Sultan of Brunei and the Aga Khan over who owned the worlds fastest megayacht. He named his megayachts after James Bond movies: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, Moonraker, Casino Royale, Skyfall, and Diamnonds are Forever.
https://www.boatinternational.com/luxury-yacht-life/owners-e...
https://www.cosanostranews.com/2012/03/crime-really-does-pay...
It had my boat name, which so far I haven't seen duplicated, and isn't particularly specific to anything that would preclude someone else from using it.
Any particular reason that “Andiamo” is so popular? It’s apparently Italian for “let’s go” but why is in the top 10? Is there some reference I’m missing?
love this, i'm a boat captain and collect images of terrible boat names on my phone. people are insane, always baffles me what they will name a boat.
If you are interested in the AIS (ship telemetry) data, my team has created a visualization project: https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Ships&zoom=5&lat=52.3890&lng=4...
How did nobody mention “PITIPIWPIW WIW WIW” yet?
There is a container ship with a name that is onomatopoeia for engine sounds.
The Ocean Trader comes up, but it's not the same specs as the MV one.
Which is special forces support ship hiding in plain sight.
All I know is that when I finally buy that Zodiac RIB, I'm naming it SANGAMON'S PRINCIPLE.
The categorization could use some work. "Comanche" shows up under mythology, for example.
It's like vanity license plates but with even less constraints... "Unsinkable II".
Cool project, you can also view some of the real ship names on https://neon.boats and see their relative ocean swell.
Reminds me of the ship names in the Culture novels by Iain M Banks.
I once saw a boat called the Betty Swollocks. It made me laugh.
In the 1980s, a Seattle-area Chinese restaurant owner had a sailboat named Won Ton Sloop. (Or so I was told as I never saw the boat myself)
Looked for several of my favorites and didn't see them.
No mention of Choppin' Broccoli which can be found in the Small Craft Harbor in San Francisco
My parents had a sailboat, and just walking around the marina there were a ton of clever names. My favorites were:
- Ménage à cinq
- Never Again II
My boat (a small 25ft sail boat) was named "Zesty Enterprise", since all the best movie lines come from The Big Lebowski.
Some of these are really lacking in gravitas.
Someone needs to take "Unsinkable II"
Only one Boaty Boat, lacking the McBoatyFace.
It really needs a picture of each boat!
Disappointed to see no mention of Boaty McBoatface.
Can't be that often boat naming becomes headlines.
I'm on mobile and I can't figure out how to search.
Can't believe there's only one Stugots
I probably missed it but can you download all the names? I want to run it through microgpt and see what it comes up with.
Bust Out Another Thousand
The top 3 names being
> Freedom
> Liberty
> Serenity
Reads like a state motto
no endurance? fags