I’m one of those annoying people who loves naming inanimate objects.  And not just the car either (’Jeremy’), but the super-duper coffee machine (’Santo’), each computer I’ve ever owned (my ASUS, ‘Beatrice’; and my new Inspiron 1525 - in Espresso Brown no less - ‘Gino’), and every other phone (’Baby Beatrice’) or camera (’Penelope’) that’s passed through my hands.  Then there’s the habit my sister and I have acquired of naming random creatures - from the scary looking spider who inhabited our bathroom (’Merv the Perv’) to the tiny green grasshopper we found on the back of our car (’Derek the Dancing Grasshopper’) to the multitude of geckos and various other insects you find in your average Australian backyard.  I’ve taken to naming other people’s things for them as well - my Dad is the proud owner of two motorbikes, ‘Gunter’ and ‘Gertrude’; whilst my mum happily drives her Toyota Corolla otherwise known as ‘Phyllis’.  My mother’s laptop has somehow gained the name ‘Casper’.  Our friend Nick’s new car is referred to as ‘Kevin’.  The challenge my sister and I have adopted is to come up with a funny or unusual name which is either old fashioned or heard most often in a language other than English, or that just plain makes us laugh.  We’ve yet to run out of inspiration.

It occurred to me today that if I lived in the seventeenth century, my naming habit would have become far more of a problem: it likely would have branded me a witch, and given my neighbours an excuse to have me tried and perhaps even executed.  In Britain, people that referred to their animals - whether domesticated or rural - by name were accused of having familiars.  A ‘familiar’ was an animal that people believed was inhabited by the devil or another nasty demon, and which was thought to give powers to the person that spoke to it.  If I, and my cat Eskimo, had been lucky enough to land ourselves a birth-date after the ascension of King James I of England (James VI of Scotland), we probably would have found ourselves in some pretty significant ecclesiastical trouble.  My love for my cat, taken alongside my habit for naming insects and other people’s property, probably would have sent me quite quickly to the stake.  I doubt Rob would have stood up for me either - he refuses to let me name any of his electronics, and he only referred to our car as ‘Jeremy’ because it matched the letters on the numberplate, ‘JRM’.  Men… they’re just too practical for witchcraft.