My uncle, that owned the farm that I grew up on, used to give names to all the cows.  Each calf, when it was born, would be given a name that began with a letter of the alphabet that was applicable for that year.  For example all calves born in the year 1957 had names that started with “N.”  I am totally making this part up because I cannot get any closer than “1957” based on how old I look in this picture of me with my calf “Nadine.”I always thought it was pretty cool that the cows had names instead of just numbers.  When you kicked “Lucy” in the butt to get her through the barn door because she was moving too slow, or yelled at “Margaret” for her to get out of the way of the tractor, it sounded so much better than yelling a “number” at them.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was photographing the data plate on a Whirlpool Dishwasher.  Wouldn’t it be cool if dishwashers had cool names like Lucy, or Margaret to correspond to the year they were manufactured–instead of these long boring serial numbers?

Then those defective dishwashers from a particular year would just jump right out at inspectors.  They would not have to figure out complicated serial numbers or look them up on the internet.  All they would have to do is look at the data plate–see the name “Methuselah” or “Delilah” and know immediately the thing was ancient–perhaps at the end of its expected life.  If they saw the names “Cruella” or “Genghis” they would immediately know that these were problematic–perhaps even re-called–or downright dangerous.  And then there could be those “Green” appliances with names like “Forest” and “Rainbow.”

Of course this gets to the heart of the problem of naming appliances.  What manufacturer would deliberately name something “Genghis?”  Would that not predispose the appliance to issues?  For sure–so what is more likely to happen is that the name given to an appliance would more than likely take on “new” definitions that identify it more accurately with its defects.  What started out as perfectly normal names would turn into “Edsel” or “Pinto” with their associated connotations.  It just would not seem right to find a problematic “Rainbow.”  That would just be wrong.

It seems there are more problems with “naming” appliances than one would first think!

Can’t you just see your home inspector opening the dishwasher or the refrigerator and looking at the data plate and exclaiming:  “Ruh roh—-you have a Betty here!”