Waiting for Supername

If you’re like me, you have spent serious time thinking about what to name your phage. Some of you are probably just waiting for that perfect name to come to mind. I waited till I got to see the microscope image. So on a lighter note, I went through the phage database online to see how other people named their phages. In general, there are four categories…

Names: This is a lame category like Donovan, Selene, etc. I mean, I understand you want to name it after yourself, but it’s not super exciting.

Books and Movies: I noticed a lot of Harry Potter names, but it ranged from TV series’ like Spartacus and Game of Thrones to Jane Austen books. I think there are some solid choices in this category.

History: People picked things like DaVinci and Napoleon. Again, there are some solid choices to be had here.

Random Names for Personal Reasons: This encompasses almost everything else. One person named their phage for their cat. Another combined their middle and last names together. Someone else named theirs FruitLoop for the cereal.

Having said that, here are my top 10 favorite/cool/bizarre names from the database.

Aragog – Just because its a perfect Harry Potter world name for a phage.

Broseidon – Poseidon+Bro = awesomeness? I don’t even know.

Velveteen – I’ll allow the finder, Jonathan Lapin, to say it in his words: “Considering that “Lapin” in French means rabbit, and that the children’s book, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” is one of the greatest children’s stories, I decided to name this phage, Mycobacteriophage Velveteen.”

Gingko Maracino – They thought it looked like a Gingko leaf and they liked the Maraschino cherries.

MisterCuddles – 🙂

MadamMonkFish – Because.

Phaedrus – the name of a dialogue by Plato between Socrates and Phaedrus, another Greek thinker. That’s a pretty cool reference.

Waterdiva – because it was from a stream apparently.

TygerBlood – Yay for dated pop-culture references!

HanShotFirst – #starwars

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