I was surprised to see this clip from The Colbert Report in which media personalities casually spoke about their ‘porn names’ as if it was the most commonplace thing in the world to have one.
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Is this some kind of hip trend that I had not heard of before? What’s the point?
As far as I could tell from the clip, a common mechanism for creating one is to combine your pet’s name with the name of the street on which you live. If that is the case, then my porn name would be ‘Baxter Townley’ which actually sounds pretty good, don’t you think?
(This clip was aired on January 17, 2013. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
glodson says
Sometimes it is called the “stripper name.” And it is the first pet you had, and the street you grew up on. As far as I know, no one really uses this to generate a porn pseudonym. But people have been doing it around here since I was a kid in the late 80’s.
Mine would have been Peanut Pinnacle. But if we allowed for current street and pet names, it would be Mason Coney Island.
Rodney Nelson says
Rover Ninth just doesn’t sound like a proper porn name.
Enkidum says
I used to hear middle name and the street you grew up on. Robert Rockhurst for me, which isn’t too bad.
Jared A says
Yes, I agree that this is a pretty well-known game, but maybe it was invented a generation later than Mano’s. “Baxter Townley” is an exceptionally good male stripper name.
machintelligence says
Gee, I rather like Simon Lawler. This could be fun.
Off topic, but could you put a log in button down here at the bottom of the comment thread?
The one at pharyngula could be used as a model.
cswella says
Butch Findley
mnb0 says
Flop Jie Sam Foek. Doesn’t seem to work well in non-English speaking countries.
julian says
Name of first pet and street you grew up on?
….um…
Trouser Troutman
>_>
Yeah, I’ll stick with julian.
Loqi says
Mickey 220th Avenue. Not bad.
Mano Singham says
I checked at Pharyngula and it looks the same here as there, to me at least.
Could you be more specific about the difference (with screen caps if possible)? Also, what benefit does it offer?
Donnie says
Yes, this game has been around for decades: Tiger Ogemaw. Not bad if I was native American :/
Zeno says
It was an Internet meme several years ago. I have to admit that “Toby Woodville” sounds like the real thing.
obscurefox says
I have always wondered if this was some weird sort of phishing thing as so many sites ask what is your first pets name as a secret question. It’s probably pretty silly of me to think that.
Mine would be Henri Pleasant, kind of odd as I’m not a guy.
Of course I rarely use my pets name for a secret question or if it is the only choice, that I have any chance of remembering, I choose the name of my first pet that I got on my own.
Yellow Thursday says
Gandalf Eleventh. Nope, doesn’t sound good.
If I use my first pet and the street I grew up on, though: Sugar Park. Yeah, that sounds like a porn name. lol
F [nucular nyandrothol] says
Yeah, this thing has been around for quite a while, but I don’t know what is up with the media heads in this regard. I’ve also run into different formulae for deriving the “porn name”, and other things you do with names to discover some other thing in a more-or-less superstitious manner (even if just for entertainment) .
Best wishes,
Pepper 224
bbgunn says
I may have a new career opportunity as ‘Fluffy Splitlog.’
T. Hunt says
Thunder Cox.
If only I had known…
Tom
sosw says
OT but if you’re registering somewhere where you’re genuinely concerned about security, you should never, ever answer the secret question as asked, and instead use it as an opportunity to have a secondary passphrase.
Even if you forget it it’s better than having something easily susceptible to a trivial dictionary attack. Most services offer better methods for re-authenticating (challenge-response over a secondary, more trusted channel, such as e-mail or mobile phone).
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne says
bbgunn, we may be related. I’m Fluffy Sawmill.
JohnnyAl says
My street name has 2 words in it, so I guess I could just use one of them. Not sure about Jake Sycamore, but Jake Ridge isn’t too bad.
machintelligence says
It may just be that WordPress doesn’t like me. If I have not logged in it recognizes my blogonym and e-mail address, but when I try to post a comment I get a “possible imposter” warning page. The WordPress button at the top will get me logged in but the text I had typed earlier is lost. I have figured a work around by opening a new tab and going to pharyngula to log in and then returning to this page, but it is inconvenient. Sadly I don’ t know how to do screen caps.
Aliasalpha says
The version i know was middle name plus street name so mine would be Richard Best
Suido says
Goldy Hardacre.
Awwww yeah.
estraven says
Hmmm. Billy Romeo Plank. Or, middle name version, Dee Romeo Plank. Either way, not effective …
Ewgenij Belzmann says
Hm, Cleopatry Zhukovsky wouldn’t be half bad, if I wasn’t a guy. Is there some provision in this game for mismatching gender-specific pet names?
P.S.: And no, don’t have a middle name. What’s up with people having several names anyways? Always found kinda weird. One is quite enough for me, thank you very much.
Mano Singham says
I agree that middle names seem unnecessary. My parents gave middle names to the children to commemorate family members whom they respected or who had died.
Ewgenij Belzmann says
I guess it is a question of tradition then. Here in Germany, where I live, most middle names come from godparents, which is apparently a thing most people here take fairly seriously despite an overall secularity in most everyday issues. But where I come from (former Soviet Union) there has been no such tradition, at least in several generations back. And in the traditions of my culture (Russian-Jewish) it apparently was common to name children with the name of grandparents (or even further back) or at least match the initials, which was the case for me.