What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet"

Shakespeare's Juliet once asked this question and recently I have begun to wonder what makes a name. I have been wondering because in my other blog I have been seeing a great disparity in the number of views each post gets. The only thing which I can see that could make a difference is the name.

So what does make a good name? What appeals to people to make them want to read a blog post, or a book, or like a band, or even how a person is perceived because of their name. Would things be different if things had other names.

Joanne Rowling is a curious example. Her books are published under the name J K Rowling, but what does the K stand for? What is her middle name? The simple answer is she doesn't have one! The K stands for Kathleen, and is taken from her Grandmothers name. The reason it is there is that the publishers of the Harry Potter series felt that the target audience of young boys would respond better to books written by J K Rowling, who could be perceived as male and would bring up memories of other popular writers, J R R Tolkien for instance, than by Joanne Rowling, who is undisputedly female. Would Harry Potter have been as successful if she had used her own name?

I may never figure out why some blog names are received better than others. I may never find out if it is because of the name, it could for all I know be because of the weather or it might just be luck of the draw.

I suppose all that really matters in the end is that people do read it.

Hope you've enjoyed reading this one.

Let me know if you have any theories on this yourself.

Notorious AEG