Name of the Year

2017 marks the 30th iterations of two beloved annual traditions: our own humble tournament and Shark Week. As we ascended from the filth of a college dorm room to become the World's Preeminent Tournament of Names, our brethren running Shark Week took an idea and created what Stephen Colbert called the Second Holiest Week of the Year.

Shark Week hatched in a smoky Manhattan bar, where a group of Discovery executives boozed and blustered until someone hit upon the perfect intersection of education and entertainment. The lineup was tame at first, filled with documentaries about diving cages and shark behavior. Each year, however, improving camera technology and better understanding of sharks lead to shots that had been impossible the year before. The series developed widespread cultural awareness as well as a small, fervent following that grew by the year.

Shark Week’s popularity took off in the late aughts thanks in part to another TV program. On a
2006 episode of 30 Rock, Tracy Morgan's character advised a colleague to "live every week like it’s Shark Week," a line that more than a decade later decorates dating profiles nationwide.

Few people can say with more certainty that they live up to Morgan's rejoinder than the man we are here today to celebrate: Dragonwagon Regional six-seed Andy Brandy Casagrande IV. ABC4 is one of the camera people who makes it possible to see sharks shred seals in HD. He is no ordinary cameraperson; he has won an Emmy for Outstanding Nature Cinematography and Popular Mechanics called him "the gutsiest shark photographer ever".

Growing up in small town Western Pennsylvania, Andy dreamed of the deep sea. He first went to Florida International University to study marine biology but found himself discouraged by grad students studying small sea creatures. He transferred to Pitt, took a semester on a cruise ship, and several years later found himself with a degree of psychology, an unfulfilling job in tech, and a longing for the sea.

Frustrated sitting at a desk, Casagrande bet the house on a future as a videographer. To prove his skill in the sea, he wrote "The Great White Shark Song" and took footage of himself swimming cageless with a guitar and great whites. After he sent that clip to nature film producers worldwide, a Cape Town-based crew gave him a three-month internship solely on his enthusiasm for sharks.

A decade and a half later, his purview extends across the animal kingdom in his work for NatGeo, Discovery, and the BBC. Still, sharks remain his one true love. Casagrande is famous for hacking together new rigs to get inventive shots, such as a pair of tongs and a GoPro that attach to a dorsal fin to show a shark’s eye view of the sea, or foam seal dummies that capture the moments immediately before mauling. "Basically," he told Popular Mechanics, "I go to the plumbing department, or I go to a sporting goods store or Walmart, and I gather materials."

With a life out of a movie and a name the high committee cannot decide how to pronounce (Andy, if you have guidance on ca-sa-gran-day vs. ca-sa-gran-dee vs. ca-sa-grand, hit us up at nameoftheyear@gmail.com), he's a dark horse to outperform his seed. If he is to join other rhyming greats like 2015's Amanda Miranda Panda in the Hall of Name, he will first have to get past lacrosse player and potential Commodores lover Brickman House. Vote on that matchup and the rest of the Dragonwagon region below and don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1 Chardonnay Pantastico, softballer for the University of Hawaii, vs. #16 Chance Comanche, Arizona Wildcats basketball player

Who has your vote?

#8 Windy Swetman III, Mississippi politician vs. #9 Sky Hyatt, VCU lacrosse player

Who has your vote?

#5 Luiji Vilain, incoming University of Michigan defensive end, vs. #12. Demon Clowney, South Carolina defensive end and Jadeveon Clowney’s cousin

Who has your vote?

#4 Kitty Chiller, Australian who complained about conditions at Rio’s Olympic village, vs. #13 Christian Joo, musician

Who has your vote?

#6 Andy Brandy Casagrande IV vs. #11 Brickman House

Who has your vote?

#3 Chito Peppler, DC foodie, vs. #14 Dougal Spork, businessman

Who has your vote?

#7 Cash Masters, Milwaukee manufacturing maestro, vs. #10 Fiery Cushman, Harvard moral psychologist

Who has your vote?

#2 Sultan McDoom, Dallas based product engineer, vs. #15 Bastiaan Slabbers, photojournalist

Who has your vote?

Many believe that humor is no more complex than the subversion of expectations. One expects a chicken to have a reason for crossing the road, or for Abbott to understand that the first baseman’s name is “Who.” And while many names in the Chrotchtangle Regional are entertaining for their repetition (14-seed Botes Boats) or their lyricism (two-seed Aphrodite Bodycomb), it’s worth stepping back for a moment to appreciate the delicious subversion expressed by the region’s ten-seed, Taco Dibbits.

Mr. Dibbits is a rice scoop of intellectualism wrapped in a tortilla of culinary delight. While his name summons the smell of sizzling meats and vegetables, he has in fact worked tirelessly at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum to improve its collection and bring masterpieces to the masses. In the last few years, he has acquired pieces such as Adriaen de Vries’ Bacchant and Rembrandt’s Marten en Oopjen for the Rijksmuseum’s collection, prompting the question, do the museum patrons know the name of the man making their experience possible? Should “Art Presented by Taco” labels adorn the works?

We don’t think the humor is lost on Mr. Dibbits. After all, he’s someone who knows how to have a good time. “The fun part of being a Director of Collections,” he said in an interview with 10 Minutes With, “is impossible to say because I think it’s all fun.” It’s that passion that earned him a promotion to the General Director of the Rijksmuseum in May 2016. His love for art and high culture seeps through every interview he gives, every article he pens.

And therein lies the subversion: while a name like Taco Dibbits may conjure a popular street foodstuff or a late-night drive-thru craving, Mr. Dibbits is the high class. He is suited, coiffed, and well-spoken. He’s been featured in the New York Times and curated multiple art documentaries. Will the juxtaposition tickle NOTY voters? Or will Mr. Dibbits find himself lamenting an early exit, consoling himself among the works of geniuses past?

Working against Mr. Dibbits is the strength of the Chrotchtangle Regional. He must overcome the smarts of seven-seed Le’Genius Wisdom Williams and other quality monikers such as the rhythmic 16-seed Bobbie Bobango or the majestic duo of eight-seed Edzard Overbeek and nine-seed Mythzard Thelisma. And of course, there’s always the chance that voters could come down with a case of the Mondays and propel one-seed Quindarious Monday to victory. Additionally, Mr. Dibbits may be entering the tournament at an inopportune time, as Taco fatigue could be setting in. It was only last year that Taco Pope, an American rugby player, won his regional and reached the Final Four.

Bearing all that in mind, it is time to vote in the 2017 NOTY Chrotchtangle Regional. Can Taco Dibbits’s love for art save him? That is in your hands, dear voters. Share your opinion below, and remember to follow us on Twitter.

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1Qundarious Monday, high school football player, vs. #16Bobbie Bobango of Laramie, Wyoming.

Who has your vote?

#8Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE, a location cloud company, vs. #9Mythzard Thelisma, financial manager for the Christianville Haiti campus and the Haiti Goat Project

Who has your vote?

#5Jeffrosenberg Tan, Indonesian investment banker, vs. #12Headman Dadzie, defender for the Western Strikers SC

Who has your vote?

#4Dallas Creamer, lacrosse player for Stevens Institute of Technology, vs. #13Free Balbona of Miami Gardens, Florida

Who has your vote?

#6Teena Touch, PR and social media guru, vs. #11Bird Lovegod, editor of The Fintech Times and co-founder of Disrupts Media

Who has your vote?

#3Eliza Fox Teats, 19th Century Methodist church builder, vs. #14Boats Botes, Gold One group asset protection and security manager

Who has your vote?

#7Le’Genius Wisdom Williams of St. Petersburg, Florida, vs. #10Taco Dibbits, General direction of Rijksmuseum

Who has your vote?

#2Aphrodite Bodycomb, MSM, MBA, vs. #15Harmony Excellent, Senior Development Manager of the American Gastroenterologist Association

Who has your vote?

Here at Name of the Year, we love unusual names and the people who carry them, but the life experiences of our naminees are far from universally positive. Over the years, we’ve heard from a handful of the contenders we have included in our brackets, and several of them have told us of the mockery they endured when they were kids.

As someone with a fairly ordinary handle, I’ve rarely been teased because of my name, and while I’m fortunate to have avoided those encounters, I’m also left to wonder if I missed an opportunity to build character. Can the burden of carrying a strange title foster strength? That’s the question we’re asking today at Name of the Year, and to proffer an answer, we’re going to look at the example of the Sithole Regional’s 11-seed, Bumper Pool.

Mr. Pool is a junior at Lovejoy High School in Texas, and after he graduates in 2018, he has committed to play football at the University of Arkansas. In his young career, he has already become a force to be reckoned with at the inside linebacker position. ESPN has listed him as one of the top 300 recruits nationwide in the class of 2018, and he received offers from a dozen top football schools before ultimately choose to play for the Razorbacks.

How has Mr. Pool gotten so good so fast? Some observers wonder if his name has factored into his blitz toward greatness. “A young man has to be tough to play inside linebacker,” wrote Greg Poole of Bulldawg Illustrated. “With a name like Bumper Pool one might have plenty of opportunities to toughen up in elementary school, right?”

Mr. Pool’s dad would certainly agree with the assertion that the name he chose for his son has given Bumper strength, since he knew from day one his son would have a talent for sports. “"I always said if I had a son, his first name would be Bumper," Jeff Pool told Bleacher Report back in 2015. "It kind of fit as a football name, and when his grandparents were OK with that, I knew we had something." The elder Pool claims to have decided on the name Bumper after receiving a vision in high school. One is left to wonder whether that vision occurred in a smoky billiards hall or a bustling lounge.

In the same Bleacher Report article, Bumper echoed his father by referring to his handle as a “football name.” At the same time, his other quotes may strike down our theory that he navigated onomastic strife and emerged as a bigger man. “The people I'm around, they don't ask anymore,” he said. “I know a lot of my friends, when they first met me, will tell their parents, 'I met a kid named Bumper.'"

Whether the Bumper moniker was ever a source of pain for the younger Pool, or if it has merely served as the “conversation starter” he claims it to be, his talents on the gridiron have ensured he won’t only be remembered for his name. Will a NOTY title be part of his legacy? As he has to face off against powerhouse three-seed Faraj Fartass in today’s round of 32, we’re giving him an “outlook not so good” for now. Win or lose, we expect Mr. Pool to continue wear his name proudly as he racks up accomplishments on and off the field.

Vote below, and remember to follow us on Twitter.

BULLTRON REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Kobe Buffalomeat vs. #9 Cherish Bloodgood

Who has your vote?

#5 Clapperton Mavhunga vs. #13 Melanie Gubbels Bupp

Who has your vote?

#6 YourMajesty Lumpkins vs. #14 Guy Hands

Who has your vote?

#2 Bonjovi Hardeman vs. #7 H. King Buttermore

Who has your vote?

SITHOLE REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Marmaduke Trebilcock vs. #9 Subu Dubey

Who has your vote?

#4 Dick Posthumus vs. #5 Hella Jongerius

Who has your vote?

#3 Faraj Fartass vs. #11 Bumper Pool

Who has your vote?

#2 Fortunate Sithole vs. #10 Tugg Snowbarger

Who has your vote?

As the NCAA’s March Madness moves to the Final Four, our competition heads to the right half of the bracket to weed our competition down to 16. The Dragonwagon regional featured a mix of chalk and upsets: One-seed and Hawaii softballer Chardonnay Pantastico struck out Chance Comanche, two-seed Sultan McDoom smote Bastiaan Slabbers, and six-seed Andy Brandy Casagrande IV razed Brickman House while ten-seed Fiery Cushman, 12-seed Demon Clowney, 13-seed Christian Joo, and 14-seed Dougal Spork played Cinderellas to opponents not worthy of being named.

The Chrotchtangle regional saw two of the closest matchups of the first round. Seven-seed Le'Genius Wisdom Williams robbed Dutch gallerist Taco Dibbits by a mere 37 votes and four Headman Dadzie fans propelled him past Jeffrosenberg Tan. Even one-seed and high committee favorite Quindarious Monday slipped by Bobbie Bobango by just 200 votes. Down the bracket, Dallas Creamer churned past Free Balboa, Bird Lovegod avoided Teena Touch, Aphrodite Bodycomb disturbed Harmony Excellent, and Eliza Fox Teats found herself beat by Boats Botes against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Vote early, vote often, or your favorite may lose their shot at the Hall of Name.

As members of the high committee, such upsets and close matchups validate the hours that go into scouring the world, pouring through your suggestions, verifying names, and ultimately constructing a bracket. Each year, hundreds of names that make us cackle, cry, and cringe cannot make the cut. Some fall because we cannot find verification, others turn out to be nicknames or name changes, and a few others lack that certain je ne se quois.

In choosing among the worthy names, we face myriad ethical dilemmas. Should we include the name of a recently murdered baby? No. What about someone who has publicly written about having been teased for the name? Many of our names come from police reports. In 2015 three of the Final Four held arrest records and the fourth, Infinite Grover, witnessed a crime. Are we doing wrong by bringing attention to their lowest moments? And can we, in good faith, appreciate a name that fills us with joy but is unremarkable within its own community?

No NOTY contestant in recent history has been more qualified to help us ponder these quandaries than Dragonwagon 10-seed Fiery Cushman. Perched in his office in Harvard's William James Hall, Cushman, a moral psychologist, studies why and how people decide what’s right and what’s wrong. With fake guns, machine learning, and every permutation of the trolley problem possible, Cushman tries to understand our innate moral drive.

Outside the lab, he's a wildly popular professor whose students describe every lecture like a TED talk. "Call me Fiery," he implores them the first lecture of the year, as they begin a 300 person hunt for the white whale of morality. While his casual attitude and his metaphoric moniker that smells of marijuana may make many mistakenly muse about a hippy upbringing, Fiery was forged from the bluest of blood: a Times political journalist and professor as parents and an education from Harvard, Harvard, and Harvard.

After robbing Cash Masters, Fiery has sights set on a new prestigious prize for his CV: Name of the Year 2017. First, he will need to summon up the hottest of conflagrations to avoid being extinguished by Dragonwagon two-seed Sultan McDoom. Vote in that matchup and the rest of the Chrotchtangle and Dragonwagon Regionals below and follow along on Twitter.

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Chardonnay Pantastico vs. #8 Windy Swetman III

Who has your vote?

#12 Demon Clowney vs. #13 Christian Joo

Who has your vote?

#6 Andy Brandy Casagrande IV vs. #14 Dougal Spork

Who has your vote?

#2 Sultan McDoom vs. #10 Fiery Cushman

Who has your vote?

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Quindarious Monday vs. #9 Mythzard Thelisma

Who has your vote?

#4 Dallas Creamer vs. #12 Headman Dadzie

Who has your vote?

#11 Bird Lovegod vs. #14 Boats Botes

Who has your vote?

#2 Aphrodite Bodycomb vs. #7 Le’Genius Wisdom Williams

Who has your vote?

As the cold of winter wanes and the calendar flips from March to April, Name of the Year too marches onward. This entry marks the beginning of the end; regionals are no more as the 2017 Sweet Sixteen are revealed. With the picture becoming clear, Name of the Year voters are eager to learn who will make it all the way. All four one-seeds (college softballer Chardonnay Pantastico from the Dragonwagon regional, football player Quindarious Monday from the Chrotchtangle regional, college football lineman Kobe Buffalomeat from the Bulltron Regional, and 19th century Cornish resident Marmaduke Trebilcock from the Sithole regional) remain intact. A few lesser seeds also advanced in upsets, including attorney and seven-seed H. King Buttermore (winning by a mere 11 votes) and 14-seed Boats Botes (advancing by a massive margin). Each remaining name, Cinderella story or not, offers a unique story, an individual rhyme, a something special for each voter to consider.

With the bracketology simplifying, we can step back and ponder this question: What’s in a name? Is it the story the name tells? The tempo of the sounds rolling off the tongue? Perhaps something deeper and more profound? Shakespeare may have made this question famous by writing it into Romeo’s mouth, but a more-recent author may be better suited to answer the question for, when it comes to memorable names, there is none greater than Dr. Seuss. Silly names adorn his pages, ranging from Bartholomew Cubbins (proud owner of 500 hats) to David Donald Doo (known for sleeping through his ABC’s) to JoJo McDodd (the future mayor of Whoville). Here at Name of the Year, where names provide inspiration, we search the real world for names that could live on his pages. Those names are both old and new and come from all over: international athletic competitions, obscure news stories, and collegiate academia.

Enter Melanie Gubbels Bupp the 13-seed out of the Bulltron Regional. One may nitpick that her first name is nothing extraordinary, but her two surnames make up for that several times over. Assonance? Check. Consonance? Present. A harmonic confluence creating an immeasurable joie de vivre? Totally there. The name springs forward as though Dr. Seuss has written her buying a thneed or counting fish.

If only Ms. Gubbels Bupp were a baker or a purveyor of handmade berets, she would be perfectly Seussian. Instead, she works in science as a biology professor at Randolph-Macon College with a B.S. from Creighton University and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Fortunately, she has an eye for whimsy to match her name. Traveling back from the Chi Beta Phi conference in 2012, Gubbels Bupp recalls, “We were treated to a beautiful double rainbow as we drove back through the mountains towards Ashland after the conference,” as though Dr. Seuss painted the image for her. (This writer imagines her reaction as similar to this video that launched a million memes.)

Brilliant and altruistic, Gubbels Bupp may be the complete package. However, the completeness of one’s package does little good when clashing the giants of the 2017 Name of the Year bracket. After all, she barely snuck past four-seed Rushmore Cervantes in the Bulltron Regional, and again narrowly staved off five-seed Clapperton Mavhunga in the subsequent round. She’ll need to remain hot against her heavily-favored opponent Kobe Buffalomeat if she hopes to advance to the Elite Eight and ultimately take home Name of the Year gold.

The time for storytelling is over. The time for linguistic wonderment has begun. Vote now, Name of the Year fans, and remember to follow us on Twitter.

THE SWEET SIXTEEN

BULLTRON REGIONAL

#1 Kobe Buffalomeat vs. #13 Melanie Gubbels Bupp

Who has your vote?

#6 YourMajesty Lumpkins vs. #7 H. King Buttermore III

Who has your vote?

SITHOLE REGIONAL

#1 Marmaduke Trebilcock vs. #4 Dick Posthumus

Who has your vote?

#2 Fortunate Sithole vs. #3 Faraj Fartass

Who has your vote?

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL

#1 Chardonnay Pantastico vs. #13 Christian Joo

Who has your vote?

#2 Sultan McDoom vs. #6 Andy Brandy Casagrande IV

Who has your vote?

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL

#1 Quindarious Monday vs. #4 Dallas Creamer

Who has your vote?

#2 Aphrodite Bodycomb vs. #14 Boats Botes

Who has your vote?

Well folks, it’s once again that special time of year. The leaves are coming back, the remains of that disgusting black snow pile on the corner of my block is finally melting, and the constant deluge of pouring rain means the oft-rhymed May flowers are just around the corner. Luckily, just as it’s begun to heat up outside, so too has it begun to heat up inside our bracket. And while nothing riles up sports fans more than the debate over what exactly defines something as ‘elite,’ there can be no denying that the 2017 Name of the Year Elite Eight are just that.

It hasn’t been easy getting to this point. In the Bulltron, Illinois State football recruit one-seed Kobe Buffalomeat had to overcome some Bupps in the road but walked away victorious with another commanding victory, while neighborhood witness six-seed YourMajesty Lumpkins dethroned the H. King himself. Over in the Sithole, one-seed Marmaduke Trebilcock ensured that Dick will have to watch the rest of the competition posthumously, as three-seed Faraj Fartass dealt a less-than-Fortunate blow to Mr. Sithole. Continuing into the Dragonwagon, one-seed Chardonnay Pantastico went full Old Testament on Christian Joo’s behind, while six-seed Andy Brandy Casagrande IV brought down my personal favorite name in the competition (no jokes here, I’m still salty about that one.) Finally, over in the Crotchtangle, one-seed Quindarious Monday Cream’d his latest opponent. His foe in the Elite Eight is the subject of today’s post.

That final name is fourteen-seedBoats Botes, who has laid waste to Aphrodite Bodycomb, Bird Lovegod, and Eliza Fox Teats in his quest for onomastic glory. While shocking upsets here at Name of the Year are nothing new, it is worth noting that the Elite Eight’s counterpart in the NCAA has never before seen a fourteen-seed compete, and the last time one even made an appearance in the Sweet Sixteen was Chattanooga in 1997.

This means we are dealing with a man who has found himself in territory which many may feel does not belong to him. It’s fitting, then, that Mr. Botes holds a day job as group assets and security manager for Gold One, where he works to combat the illegal ground and surface mining that is unlawfully taking place on his company’s territories in the East Rand, outside Johannesburg, South Africa. The Australian-based company develops and mines both gold and uranium around the world, though it is their Modder East gold mine which poses the greatest challenge to Mr. Botes.

For years, the problem of illegal South African gold mining has raised obvious safety, social, and environmental concerns in the region, often with violent consequences. According to this article in the Rand Daily Mail, over 300 illegal miners have died in clashes for control of mine shafts since 2012. These illegal mining enterprises employ tens of thousands, many of whom are refugees from neighboring countries who are desperate for work and find themselves exploited by local crime syndicates. Because of the huge profit margins spread across multiple countries through an intricate system of miners, sellers, distributors, and buyers, the South African government has had a difficult time stamping out the practice. Mr. Botes believes that the only way to wipe out illegal mining is through a coordinated effort between the mining industry, government, the community, and law enforcement. While he knows there is a long way to go before it’s fully eradicated, he seems confident that the practice is on the decline. And if there’s one man who knows how to overcome a remarkably difficult challenge, it’s the man who has found himself competing in the Elite Eight as a fourteen seed.

Though Mr. Botes certainly has his hands full solving a problem with myriad causes and no easy solution, we hope that his path to a Name of the Year championship is much more straightforward. So cast your Boats Botes votes below, leave your Boats Botes notes, quotes, and anecdotes in the comments, and as always, be sure to follow @NOTYTourney on Twitter!

THE ELITE EIGHT

BULLTRON REGIONAL

#1 Kobe Buffalomeat vs. #6 YourMajesty Lumpkins

Who has your vote?

SITHOLE REGIONAL

#1 Marmiduke Trebilcock vs. #3 Faraj Fartass

Who has your vote?

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL

#1 Chardonnay Pantastico vs. #6 Andy Brandy Casagrande IV

Who has your vote?

CROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL

#1 Quintarious Monday vs. #14 Boats Botes

Who has your vote?

Out of a field of 64, only four names remain. From the Bulltron, six-seed YourMajesty Lumpkins reigned supreme. Down in the Sithole, Marmaduke Trebilcock survived as the last remaining one-seed. In the Dragonwagon, Andy Brandy Casagrande IV is sipping on a victory glass of Courvoisier. Finally, in the Chrotchtangle, Boats Botes successfully broadsided all of his opponents.

Over the past few weeks, voters have had ample opportunities to analyze these names, break them down, and parse them every which way. Now that we're in the Final Four, let's not overthink it. The two current matchups are available below, with a haiku to accompany each name. Vote. Stump. Follow. We'll see you later this week for the final.

FINAL FOUR

Bulltron Regional six-seed YourMajesty Lumpkins

Name fit for a king
No matter how you spell it
Bend the knee and vow

Sithole Regional one-seed Marmaduke Trebilcock

He came from Cornwall
Land of hens with name to match
A cock crows abroad

Who has your vote?

Dragonwagon Regional six-seed Andy Brandy Casagrande IV

A three-pronged attack
Dives for nominal glory
Swimming with the sharks

Chrotchtangle Regional 14-seed Boats Botes

14-seed leaves port
On the S.S. Double Speak
Can something gold stay?

Who has your vote?

Name of the Year 2017 is at its apex, and for those of us who make up the NOTY High Committee, it is certainly not the final we expected. In one corner, we have YourMajesty Lumpkins: Bulltron Regional six-seed, Chicago man, and a contender whose name has been spelled Yamajesty in some news sources.

In the other corner floats Botes Boats: Chrotchtangle Regional 14-seed, South African mining security man, and subject of much controversy, in part because some of our beloved fans believe his actual first name is Peet. We value the opinions of those who would hope to rock the Boat, and we are investing the aforementioned situation; that said, we feel confident in our decision to legitimize Mr. Boats' name, and we will continue with our voting as planned.

We will allow both remaining competitors to carry on despite any potential discrepancies related to their names, but we will not celebrate them as our ideal finalists. Just as The People are welcome to express their voices in our open and free elections, we are welcome to lobby against the choices you have made. Did Botes Boats really deserve to cruise past Eliza Fox Teats, Bird Lovegod, Aphrodite Bodycomb, Quindarious Monday, and Andy Brandy Casagrande IV? Was YourMajesty Lumpkins the right pick over Tutz Honeychurch, Guy Hands, H. King Buttermore III, Kobe Buffalmeat, and Marmaduke Trebilcock? In many of those cases, much of the High Committee would agree the answer is no.

Alas, this is a democracy, and as we found out last November, democratic elections sometimes produce...unusual results. At this point, there's only one festivity left commence. Vote below, and let's crown a People's Choice in the 2017 Name of the Year ballot. Whether you will choose a regal name or a waterborne one, make your decision known at this time:

Who has your vote?

If you consider Boats Botes' journey through the 2017 Name of the Year field, you'll find it to be a perfect inverse to the tale of the Titanic. In one story, a vessel thought to be unsinkable hits an iceberg and collapses to the bottom of the sea. In the other, a Boat that seemed, at least in our eyes, utterly sinkable dodges one onomastic hazard after another, sometimes with shocking ease, en route to a triumphant success.

Decades from now, how will future generations spin the yarn of the South African chief of security at mining company Gold One? Will they speak with admiration of the man who squeezed Eliza Fox Teats, shot down Bird Lovegod, removed the teeth of Aphrodite Bodycomb, ended Quindarious Monday, drank up Andy Grande Casagrande IV, and dethroned YourMajesty Lumpkins? Will they lament the detritus Mr. Botes left behind in his wake, bemoaning that he took the NOTY crown from one of his opponents? Or will they just make How I Met Your Mother references?

What we at least hope will not be part of the discussion is the validity of Mr. Botes name. In recent days, some of our beloved fans have sought to invalidate the "Boats" handle as a nickname. For evidence, they point to a Facebook page, apparently belonging to Mr. Boats, which implies that his actual first name could be Peet.

When we assemble our field, however, we pay no attention to Facebook. Social media is easily faked, and so in our minds, it can neither prove nor disprove the validity of a name. Meanwhile, Boats Botes is named as such in news articles and is known professionally by his repetitive moniker. We have reached out to Mr. Botes for clarity, and if he responds to us, there's a chance we will have to offer a "Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture"-level retraction. For now, though, Boats Botes stands as the 2017 Name of the Year. To the protestors, we can only promise that we at the High Committee are not enjoying this reality any more than they are.

If nothing else, the fantastic voyage of Boats Botes cements his home nation as perhaps the single greatest hotbed of NOTY talent. He is the third winner to come from South Africa, joining Courage Tshabalala (1997) and Tokyo Sexwale (2001). How many more potential champions are hidden in the townships of Jo'burg, the gold mines of the Witwatersrand, and the grasslands of the Veldt? We hope you will help us answer that question by continuing to submit your favorite names to nameoftheyear@gmail.com. With your assistance, we can return in 2018 with another stellar field. Until then, we shall be like Boats Botes passing in the night. Until next time, so long, and make sure to stay up to date by following us on Twitter.

Last month, you the people of the voting public selected Boats Botes, an employee in South Africa's gold mining industry, as your selection for the 2017 Name of the Year. It was, all things considered, a fine choice. All 64 of the names that make it into our tournament each year are by virtue of their inclusion exciting enough to win the title. The NOTY field represents the top 1% as far as names go, so even if Mr. Botes was not our personal High Committee choice, the quality of his handle is still far superior to most others in the world.

That 1% area, however, has a lot of area to explore, and we don't think it's right to cast aside some names that may have been overlooked due to the pecularities of our bracket format or the whims of our voters. You as a group, for example, put 12-seed Headman Dadzie past five-seed Jeffrosenberg Tan in the Chrotchtangle Regional's first round, and I have no idea why you did that. Whatever your reasoning was, you decided that Mr. Tan's stay in the tournament was to be as brief as possible.

To the group that organizes this annual showdown, many of these names deserve to be honored in a more thorough manner than what our bracket provides, and the High Committee vote is the method we use to show a little more love for the names that particularly tickled us this year. It's our way of adding our two cents to your sea of opinions.

In recent years, we have shirked our High Committee duty and have not determined our own champion adjacent to that of The People. In 2017, though, with such a contentious winner taking the title, we weren't about to let slip our chance to have our say. We each filled out a bracket and awarded 25 points to our respective winners, 15 points to our runners up, 10 points for additional Final Four contenders, seven points for the remaining members of our Elite Eight, and five points for the Sweet Sixteen.

Here is the High Committee's Top 10. (First-place votes in parentheses.)

1. Kobe Buffalomeat 229 (6)
2. Sultan McDoom 156 (3)
3. Aphrodite Bodycomb 120 (3)
4. Marmaduke Trebilcock 112 (1)
5. Chardonnay Pantastico 107
6. Fortunate Sithole 97
7. Jeffrosenberg Tan 81 (1)
8. Andy Brandy Casagrande IV 80
9. Quindarious Monday 70
10. Faraj Fartass 61

Ultimately, we the High Committee went for the All-American option. We selected Kobe Buffalomeat, incoming Illinois State University offensive lineman, as our Name of the Year. He will live alongside the 2017 People's Choice -- Mr. Botes -- in our annals.

Don't think of this as our way of protesting the results. As I said up top, each name in the bracket is special. It just may be that some are more special than others, and we hope that our point of view gives you something fresh to think about as you await NOTY 2018 -- which will be powered, as always, by your wonderful suggestions. Please keep us in mind if you ever witness an incredible moniker in the wild, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

The following post was first published on Deadspin.

Last month, the voting public selected Boats Botes as the 2017 Name of the Year. Congratulations, voting public, on choosing a wildly inferior candidate for the second time in six months! The Name of the Year High Committee held a separate vote, as the committee often does. And while we could only right this one election wrong, we feel we have done so.

Kobe Buffalomeat is our 2017 Name of the Year.

Buffalomeat is, of course, the 6-foot-7, 285-pound offensive lineman from Lawrence, Kan., whose name blew up in February after he committed to Illinois State. Darren Rovell made good—and one hopes ironic—use of “BREAKING” on Twitter, reporting that “Illinois State signs the best recruit name in college football recruiting history.” The Washington Post called Buffalomeat “the nation’s first 102-star recruit.” Deadpsin dubbed the Buffalomeat news “the only good thing to happen on Twitter during National Signing Day.” Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples, a noted names and NOTY fan, banged out a comprehensive profile. Jordan Peele tweeted, “We’re gonna need a bigger sketch comedy show.” The Buffalomeat phenomenon culminated with an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live by the name himself.

Buffalomeat seems like a good kid—composed, well spoken, nice smile, sense of humor. He retweeted, without comment, our Deadspin post on the NOTY bracket. But those qualities weren’t what made him the overall tournament No. 1 seed, or the landslide selection of the committee. Sure, you could argue that “Kobe Buffalomeat” is a little on the nose onomastically. And the media attention might have made the name feel overexposed by the time of public balloting. But it’s a glorious name regardless: Kobe because his mom, Paula, liked the name of then-third-year Lakers guard Kobe Bryant; Buffalomeat from the Cheyenne Arapaho tribe in Oklahoma in the lineage of his father, Ray. Kobe is a kind of meat. Buffalomeat is a kind of meat. As we say at NOTY, Kobe Buffalomeat has it going both ways.

Kimmel asked Buffalomeat what people call him. “A lot of people call me Buff, a couple people call me Beef and the head coach calls me Meat,” he replied.

We call him the 2017 Name of the Year. Congratulations, @buffalomeat10!

Here’s the Top 10 as selected by the NOTY committee, some of whom have been doing this since the 1980s. Scoring is 25-15-10-7-5 points per round. First-place votes in parentheses.

1. Kobe Buffalomeat 229 (6)
2. Sultan McDoom 156 (3)
3. Aphrodite Bodycomb 120 (3)
4. Marmaduke Trebilcock 112 (1)
5. Chardonnay Pantastico 107
6. Fortunate Sithole 97
7. Jeffrosenberg Tan 81 (1)
8. Andy Brandy Casagrande IV 80
9. Quindarious Monday 70
10.Faraj Fartass 61

Boats Botes, a South African gold-mining executive, tied for 21st place with Dutch museum director Taco Dibbits, Atlanta lawyer H. King Buttermore III and Dutch designer Hella Jongerius with 17 points each.

We're tanned, we're rested, we're ready. Your 2018 NOTY bracket is above. You can read our opening thoughts over at Deadspin. Vote responsibly. Thanks for your support.

If you play Football Manager or Dream League Soccer, you know that the pleasure of stacking a virtual team with Messi, Ronaldo, Aguero, and De Gea, only to run roughshod over Arsenal and Dortmund, quickly wears thin. You need to mix things up, to seek new life for the old ceremony by imposing artificial, formal constraints: teams of nothing but one-named, Lusophone footballers (Willian, Neymar, Artur, Pedro); teams built of only fullbacks and goalkeepers; teams consisting solely of Americans (the greatest challenge of all). As a child obsessed with the floppy-disk era classic Micro League Baseball and armed with a copy of Total Baseball that I could barely lift off my bookshelf—putting us in 1990, give or take—I constructed a roster featuring Orval Overall, Yam Yaryan, and other long-forgotten, alliterative old-timers, forgoing winning for the joys of a formalist project well-executed.

So it comes as little surprise that the lucky few at the helm of actual professional teams might also occasionally pursue less than optimal—if, for our purposes, more entertaining—methods of roster construction. Enter Abdallah Lemsagam, the chairman of Oldham Athletic Association Football Club (or Oldham Athletic, or the Latics, or just plain Oldham). Lemsagam, a Moroccan ex-sports agent, took over the third-tier English club earlier this year and, in one of his first moves, brought in the terrifically named Enock Kwateng on loan from French Ligue 1 side Nantes, thereby reuniting him with his running mate Queensy Menig, likewise formerly of Nantes and likewise onomastically blessed.

These two should fit right in at Oldham, which already has a roster, it would seem, constructed to score NOTY recognition rather than, you know, goals. Other current Latics include Belgian winger Gyamfi Kyeremah; blue-chip midfielder Ben Pringle; Curaçaoan winger Gevaro Nepumuceno; and both halves of the 8-9 matchup in the 2018 Bulltron Regional: eight-seed Duckens Nazon, a French-born Haitian striker on loan from second-tier Wolverhampton, and nine-seed Zeus de la Paz, a reserve goalkeeper and compatriot of the aforementioned Nepumuceno.

Which Oldham new boy’s name will get your nod? On secondary and tertiary attributes, the edge has to go to Duckens (middle name: Moses; two goals in seven Oldham appearances), rather than Zeus (middle name: Chandi; yet to play since coming over on loan from the Cincinnati Dutch Lions, which is apparently a real thing, this January). A Wikipedia page that may very well have been written by Duckens himself declares him “Haiti’s hero in the 2015 Gold Cup,” on account of his scoring the country’s only two goals in the tournament’s group stage, earning Les Grenadiers a draw against Panama and a shock victory against Honduras—World Cup qualifiers both—and a place in the quarterfinals. (If the quality of a player’s name correlates with their performance in international play, thank goodness the USMNT has Gedion Zelalem, Desevio Payne, and Maki Tall in the developmental pipeline.)

But on names alone, Duckens’s nasal charm can’t hold a candle to Zeus’s combination of a fearsome, thunderbolt-wielding deity and the most peaceful, mellifluous surname imaginable. It’s the Curaçao for what ails you, but will it be enough to get past top-seed Salami Blessing in the next round? And can the father of the god of war then make peace well enough with the voters to emerge from a Bulltron Regional loaded with traditional powerhouses like two-seed Jimbob Ghostkeeper and No. 3 Mosthigh Thankgod, not to mention strong mid-major-historical-figures like the long-forgotten four-seed Early Charlemagne, the too-on-point seven-seed Dr. Dimple Royalty, and my prophesied winner of the whole shebang, No. 5 Habakkuk Baldonado?

As you fill out your ballots, may de la Paz be with you (and also you with de la Paz). And remember to follow us on Twitter for updates.

BULLTRON REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1 Salami Blessing, Nigerian engineering student,vs. #16 Bernard Bumpus, ceramics historian

Who has your vote?

#8 Duckens Nazon vs. #9 Zeus de la Paz

Who has your vote?

#5 Habakkuk Baldonado, Pitt Panthers defensive end from Italy, vs. #12 Armagedon Draughn, cornerback signed last year by the New York Jets

Who has your vote?

#4 Early Charlemagne, web developer, vs. #13 Miracle Crimes, arrested for allegedly kicking an officer in the groin

Who has your vote?

#6 Tuna Altuna, Turkish tennis player, vs. #11 Phlandrous Fleming Jr., basketball player for Charleston Southern University

Who has your vote?

#3 Mosthigh Thankgod, Pennsylvanian soccer player, vs. #14 Fabulous Flournoy, called the “most celebrated figure in the history of the British Basketball League” by the New York Times

Who has your vote?

#7 Dr. Dimple Royalty, Indiana anesthesiologist, vs. #10 Jamez Brickhouse, cornerback at Old Dominion University

Who has your vote?

#2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper, Canadian hockey player, vs. #15 Travis Couture-Lovelady, former Kansas state representative who later took a position at the NRA

Who has your vote?

Dan Wachtell is a lawyer and soccer enthusiast in New York. He has written in the past about the world of competitive tournament Scrabble for Slate and about the intricacies of federal criminal law for much smaller audiences.

Last night, the NCAA tournament predictably ended with the monotonous Mainliners mangling Michigan. This year, we of the High Committee found ourselves agnostic to the tournament that serves as our inspiration. Whereas competitions past have featured March Madness monikers like God Shammgod, Sindarius Thornwell, and Koko Archibong, this year no one in the NCAA tournament was able to crack our Super 64. Ages ago, Mikal Bridges and Moritz Wagner may have been shoo-ins, but, in the hyper-competitive world of 2018, they couldn’t make it past our first cut.

As Bulltron Regional voting continues, we post now the Fruithandler Memorial Region. Formerly the Sithole, this region has been rechristened for at least this year in honor of 2004 Name of the Year and Hall of Name inductee Jerome Fruithandler, honored for the “evocative imagery of his surname and its delicious contrast with an always tasty first name,” a beloved business owner and father.

Here at NOTY, we love dads. Last year, 12-seed Headman Dadzie upset High Committee favorite Jeffrosenberg Tan. The year before, we crowned the great papa himself, Pope McCorkle III, as Name of the Year. While feminists understandably speak of a desire to smash the Crystal Patriarche, we have a soft spot in our heart for dads, but one fatherly feature we do not favor is the flat, predictable Dad Joke. A good pun name like Genghis Cohen will always make us grin, but lame wordplay like “Hi Hungry, I’m Dad” has no place in our bracket (until one of you sends us a contestant named Hungry, or, even better, Hungry Dada). Indonesia even has a word for jokes so lame you cannot help but laugh: jayus.

At least one naminee vying for the 2018 NOTY title loves a good Dad Joke—the alliterative Fruithandler five-seed Shamoil Shipchandler (pictured above). After a decorated career as a lawyer in white collar criminal litigation, he took over as regional director of the Securities and Exchange Commission in Fort Worth in 2015. His tenure overseeing accountants and compliance officers began unremarkably to the outside observer. Everything changed in April 2016, when the official twitter account of the SEC in Fort Worth began tweeting out of character:

We don’t understand why record stores failed. They had record sales every year.
— SEC Fort Worth (@FortWorth_SEC) January 2, 2017

People keep asking us whether the Big 12 is better than the SEC. Sorry. We’re only familiar with the Big Four.
— SEC Fort Worth (@FortWorth_SEC) October 14, 2017

Pro tip: Never buy flowers from a monk. Only YOU can prevent florist friars.
— SEC Fort Worth (@FortWorth_SEC) February 14, 2017

Normally when a verified, staid account veers off script, the intern or employee behind the change gets the ax. In this case, though, it turns out that the rebellion came from the top—the culprit was Shipchandler himself. Today, the jokes continue, drawing confusion, groans, and even the ire of one narcissistic billionaire Presidential hopeful: Mark Cuban.

Shipchandler's groan-worthy tweets, however, are driven in part by the idea that generating attention on social media, even through means that have nothing to do with official government affairs, is good for business. “You’ve got to make sure that they want to see your content,” Shipchandler said of Twitter users. “Then, if they want to see your content, you can add in things that you think they should know about and they’ll end up seeing because they follow you.”

While the Director has a cerebral social media strategy to explain his shift, we humbly offer another explanation: His family grew tired of the jokes and he needed another outlet. If Shamoil has a chance to become Director of the Fruithandler Region, he’ll need his jayus-jiving audience to protect him from first-round upset by northeast Ohio pediatricianDr. Megha Panda. Vote on Shipchandler's matchup and the rest of the Fruithandler Region below, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

FRUITHANDLER REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1 Makenlove Petit-Fard, Florida football player vs. #16 Dr. Pitt Derryberry, psychology professor at Western Kentucky University

Who has your vote?

#8 Babucarr Fatty, accused of violent crime, vs. #9 Sparkle Hayter, Canadian author

Who has your vote?

#5 Shamoil Shipchandler vs. #12 Dr. Megha Panda

Who has your vote?

#4 Corky Boozé, California politician, vs. #13 Darwin Tabacco, who held out at home during Hurricane Irma

Who has your vote?

#6 Dr. Birchann Paffenbarger, Colorado chiropractor, vs. #11 Covadonga del Busto Naval, Spaniard

Who has your vote?

#3 Blossom Albuquerque, transit analyst, vs. #14 Obra Kernodle IV, chief of staff to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf

Who has your vote?

#7 Sir'Zion Dance, inside linebacker, vs. #10 Devoid Couch of Ohio

Who has your vote?

#2 Reverend Dongo Pewee, Liberian-Canadian pastor, vs. #15 Jempy Drucker, Luxembourgish cyclist

Who has your vote?

Three days into the 2018 Name of the Year tournament, excitement is at an all time high. Thousands of voters are punching their Bulltron and Fruithandler ballots (thank you!), analytical individuals are sharing their bracket breakdowns, and new fans are flocking to our Twitter feed for updates.

Despite all this hubbub, few have displayed more passion for our endeavor than the employees of Smith & Jones, a marketing agency specializing in healthcare. The Smith & Jones team has caught NOTY fever, a condition that, unfortunately, is not covered by their clients. The evidence of their affliction is the giant, hand-drawn NOTY bracket that stretches across one of the blackboards in their office.

Most of our NCAA brackets are busted, but we're super excited at @smithandjones1 for the @Deadspin @gutelle 2018 Name of the Year bracket voting to begin! We've dedicated an entire chalkboard wall in the office to it. pic.twitter.com/cznaS4esku
— Dave Mercier (@mercierdesign) April 2, 2018

Despite the medium they’ve chosen for their display, Smith & Jones employees aren’t required to fill their brackets with chalk, and indeed, many of the company’s workers have shied away from the top-line seeds. According to Dave Mercier, who posted the blackboard bracket on Twitter, Bulltron six-seed Tuna Altuna, Fruithandler four-seed Corky Boozé, and Dragonwagon four-seed Chardonnay Beaver have emerged as trendy choices in the Smith & Jones NOTY pool.

How did this amazing effort come to be? Mercier chalks it up to an old NOTY favorite:

We became aware of the NOTY bracket last year while doing research on a potential client. Our contact had provided some previous brand materials and one of the ad samples mentioned Dr. Loki Skylizard. He was no longer with the hospital but obviously we had to Google that name to see what the deal was. That led us to the 2014 bracket, reviewing the incredible names on other brackets, and the promise that we'd be involved in 2018 (We had just missed 2017 and Kobe Buffalomeat).

Dr. Skylizard, a one-seed in 2014, touted an amazing backstory that has become ingrained in Name of the Year lore. Who, then, in this year’s Dragonwagon Regional possesses a personal history of similarly epic proportions?

Allow me to introduce you to the Dragonwagon’s 11-seed, Forbes Thor Kiddoo.

For nearly two decades, visitors to San Francisco’s Pier 39 who gazed upon the Pacific were treated to an unusual sight: A copse of palm trees and a white tower jutting into the sky just offshore. A row of gold letters on the structure’s face revealed its name: Forbes Island, named after its owner Forbes Thor Kiddoo, a legendary eccentric in a town filled with them.

Kiddoo began building Forbes Island in 1975, using a 700-ton barge as his bedrock. By the time of its maiden voyage in 1980, its amenities included, “more than a dozen palm trees, white sand from Carmel and even a waterfall that streamed into a hot tub,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “There were also 11 velvet-clad bedrooms, a grand piano and a 1,500-bottle cellar.”

For the next 19 years, Kiddoo sailed his barge-house around the Bay Area. He envisioned his floating residence as the first of what would be a series of “Nautilus Islands” that would bring luxury living to the seas. The authorities had other ideas. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission repeatedly forced Kiddoo to move his barge and eventually expelled him from the inlet entirely, stating that Forbes Island was “obstructing navigation.”

In 1999, Kiddoo found the perfect home for his over-the-top residence. At Pier 39, Forbes Island lived next to several tourist attractions in the shadow of Alcatraz Island, operating as a floating restaurant. One time, someone spotted Sean Connery dining there, though upon further investigation, the patron was revealed to be a mere Sean Connery impersonator.

Forbes Island and Pier 39 coexisted peacefully, but in 2017, the 79-year-old Kiddoo announced his plan to sell his barge. He understood that completing the sale would be a difficult task. “It’s going to be a lot for someone to take on because there are so many moving parts,” he said at the time.

If Kiddoo is still searching for a buyer, perhaps some publicity from our tournament can help him, but is his name strong enough for a deep run? It was given to him by his similarly-eccentric mother, who named her children Forbes, Vanatta, Torsten, and Nanette, according to a 1987 People Magazine profile of the legendary seaman.

Forbes Thor Kiddoo is undoubtedly a great name, but in the first round, it’s up against an equally-impressive moniker, that of PR and publishing executive Crystal Patriarche. Will Forbes smash the Patriarche, or will Crystal sink her barge-dwelling opponent? You can decide the answer to that question, and seven others, below.

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1 La Royce Lobster-Gaines, Missouri teacher, vs. #16 Christine Plentyhoops, regional vice president at Primerica

Who has your vote?

#8 Darthvader Williamson, surgical technician, vs. #9 Delicious Peters, deceased Louisianan

Who has your vote?

#5 Lola Honeybone, PR agent, vs. #12 Chosen Roach, arrested in the Baton Rogue area

Who has your vote?

#4 Chardonnay Beaver, Seattle-area high schooler, vs. #13 Maverick Buffo, recent draftee of the Toronto Blue Jays

Who has your vote?

#6 Crystal Patriarche vs. #11 Forbes Thor Kiddoo

Who has your vote?

#3 Quindarious Gooch, arrested in connection with a drug investigation, vs. #14 Mike Diaper, Executive Director of Sport England

Who has your vote?

#7 Candida Seasock, mentor of tech companies, vs. #10 Adele Gorrilla, former CIO of Denison University

Who has your vote?

#2 Ceejhay French-Love, Arizona Wildcats tight end, vs. #15 Yo'Heinz Tyler, wide receiver from Louisiana

Who has your vote?

History is filled with great underdog stories. The Giants toppling the 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Villanova playing a “Perfect Game” against Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA championship. Twelve-year-old Henry Rowengartner making the Chicago Cubs in 1993.

And that's just sports. Given Name of the Year’s cultural cachet, the stakes here are much higher. Time may forget a World Series champion—did you know the White Sox won the World Series in 2005? It’s true!—but a NOTY champion lives forever. Each year, you may look down the bracket in search of the miracle moniker that may beat the odds. In 2018, you may choose to go up on a Tuesday.

Tuesday DerMargosian is in no way a shoo-in to advance, but the Texas Longhorns softball outfielder is familiar with long odds. “I'm kind of a miracle baby,” she told Texas Sports.com.

Before she was born, doctors told DerMargosian's parents she was likely to have spina bifida. “I wasn't supposed to live past a week of being born, and my Mom didn't want to get attached to me, so she said ‘whatever day she's born that's going to be her name.’ And I just so happened to be born on a Tuesday.”

(Name of the Year fact checkers continue to investigate the involvement of Addams Family fandom in her naming.)

In a segment on ESPN, DerMargosian described her name as perfect because “it’s super unique. And that’s my personality: unique.” Those who know DerMargosian—parents, coaches, even herself—describe her as personable and goofy. Perhaps always fighting the odds has taught her to have fun while doing so.

A three-sport high-school athlete, DerMargosian batted .301 last season as a freshman at Texas last year. But while her athletic stock may be soaring, she's gonna need to beat some more odds in NOTY. The 15-seed in the Chrotchtangle, DerMargosian's first opponent is the No. 2 seed, Canadian footballer Shaka Licorish. Like his opponent's, Licorish's name has been noted by local media. It’s a classic matchup: two jocks, Canada and Texas, football and softball, overdog and under.

There’s plenty more intrigue in the region. California doctor and top seed Narwhals Mating looms a giant of the deep. If Licorish isn't to your taste, then maybe seven-seed Lucas Chalupa or 16-seed Clinton Bacon. Need scriptural mojo? Pray for aptly named 11-seed Hallelujah Lulie to undo aptly placed six-seed Sixto Cancel. If your lean toward Middle Earth, five-seed Rev. Hobbit Forrest hopes to make second breakfast out his opponent, while 10-seed Gandalf Hernandez plots to arrive in the next round neither late nor early but precisely when he means to.

Vote below, and remember to follow us on Twitter.

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL, ROUND ONE

#1 Dr. Narwhals Mating, Californian doctor, vs. #16 Clinton Bacon, twentieth century light heavyweight boxer

Who has your vote?

#8 Bramble Klipple, Senior Director of Philanthropy at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Scottish fiddle enthusiast, vs. #9 Mahogany Loggins, suspect in robbery of Minnesotan Kohl’s

Who has your vote?

#5 Rev. Hobbit Forrest, Prayer Team Director at the Center for Spiritual Living in Florida, vs. #12 Genuine Potts, Chattanooga Mocs wide receiver

Who has your vote?

#4 Beau Titsworth, Oklahoma Sooner golfer, vs. #13 Palestine Ace, former Bank of America senior vice president indicted for conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud

Who has your vote?

#6 Sixto Cancel, CEO of “Think of Us,” a mobile life-coaching platform assisting foster youth in transitioning to adulthood, vs. #11 Hallelujah Lulie, Researcher of Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division for the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa

Who has your vote?

#3 Dr. Taekwondo Byrd, Colorado internist, vs. #14 Bucky Worboys, General Manager of duPont REGISTRY, a classified advertisement platform specializing in luxury cars, real estate, and yachts

Who has your vote?

#7 Lukas Chalupa, Czech hockey player, vs. #10 Gandalf Hernandez, former VP of Product Engineering at Mertech Data Systems

Who has your vote?

#2 Shaka Licorish vs. #15 Tuesday DerMargosian

Who has your vote?

When the mind turns to salami, where does it first go? Sigmund Freud made a living off of this question. Your author, the Gen-X son of a New York shrink, thinks of Katz’s Delicatessen. If you prefer wordplay to foreplay, maybe it’s to Jon Agee’s compendium of palindromes, Go Hang a Salami! I’m a Lasagna Hog!

And then there are those of a certain age—the age, say, of the founding members of the NOTY High Committee—who conjure one Mario “Salami” Pettrino, reserve guard on the Carver High School basketball team in the CBS drama The White Shadow (front row, far right). One of them will now take over this post for a couple of paragraphs to drop some knowledge, or Coolidge, on you.

The White Shadow—which aired from 1978-81, precisely when the High Committee was in high school—helped usher in the era of gritty, high-concept Quality Television like Hill Street Blues, E.R., and Homicide. Created by Bruce Paltrow (Gwyneth’s dad), The White Shadow tackled it all: gun violence, teen pregnancy, absentee fathers, homosexuality, STDs, drugs and alcohol. It was serious without being (too) didactic, genuinely funny, and often downright moving. Bill Simmons says it changed his life. Here’s a nice appreciation by Nell Beram in The Awl. The show was terrific. You should watch it.

Salami was the white punk transplanted New Yorker. In one episode he unwittingly shares prescription amphetamines with the team. In another he is seduced by a teacher. Salami was played by Timothy Van Patten, who would go on to direct the Quality TV that descended from the descendants of The White Shadow—including episodes of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones.

Which brings us to the second round of the Bulltron Regional, where we find another Salami, No. 1 seed Salami Blessing, a 23-year old chemical engineer from Nigeria, a land rich in oil, sesame, and names. Nigeria has given us NOTY luminaries such as ex-president Goodluck Jonathan and top-100 international Scrabble player Ben Quickpen. So it is perhaps no surprise that this 2016 interview with Blessing doesn’t even bother to get into the provenance of her name.

The whys and wherefores, however, are not always of immediate concern. What inspired Richard Mather to name his boy Cotton, and Cotton to up the ante, naming his offspring Increase? Why did 2008 name-inee Perfect Engelberger call her son Dom Perignon Champagne? Who sent us this Salami?

Sometimes, though, the stories of how names come to the High Committee’s attention merit retelling. Sure, the majority arrive via email (for which, thanks), spotted by you (and us) in, more often than not, the ninth paragraph of a local news report about a holdup at a gas station. But sometimes a Committee member tears off the side of a moving box and submits it as validation.

That was the case with Jerome Fruithandler (NOTY 2004, Hall of Name 2008). This NOTY offseason we heard from a grandson of Jerome’s asking for “something noting the victory. Something for the family” to honor his late grandfather. Until the Hall of Name becomes a brick-and-mortar tourist destination, however, the best we can offer is a virtual salute.

And so it is that the region formerly known as the Sithole (for Zimbabwean legislator and 1985 NOTY Godfrey Sithole) is now the Jerome Fruithandler Memorial. It is a small but sincere token of our appreciation. As we wrote in 2008, Jerome was a respected member of Temple Bet Torah in Mount Kisco, N.Y. When such a beloved figure dies, by tradition it is said zikhrono livrakha: “May his memory be a blessing.”

Perhaps this year a Salami Blessing.

Vote below.

Dan Wachtell is a lawyer, soccer enthusiast, and occasional writer living in Brooklyn.

BULLTRON REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Salami Blessing vs. #8 Duckens Nazon

Who has your vote?

#12 Armagedon Draughn vs. #13 Miracle Crimes

Who has your vote?

#6 Tuna Altuna vs. #3 Mosthigh Thankgod

Who has your vote?

#7 Dr. Dimple Royalty vs. #2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper

Who has your vote?

FRUITHANDLER REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Makenlove Petit-Fard vs. #9 Sparkle Hayter

Who has your vote?

#12 Dr. Megha Panda vs. #4 Corky Boozé

Who has your vote?

#11 Covadonga del Busto Naval vs. #14 Obra Kernodle IV

Who has your vote?

#10 Devoid Couch vs. #2 Rev. Dongo Pewee

Who has your vote?

The bracket above comes courtesy of reader Evan Gregory, who has filled in the first-round winners. Beyond his NOTY fandom, Evan is also one of The Gregory Brothers, known for their soulful songifications of news and pop culture. Thanks, Evan! We promised we’d share your bracket, and a promise like that is unbreakable.

NOTY succeeds only because of its symbiotic relationship with its fans. You feed us hundreds of names and we refine them into a bracket of compelling matchups. When the seeds are set, you use our framework to create more joyous things, including Evan’s updated bracket, Daniel Wood’s sublime vote tracker, Dave Mercier's calligraphic chalkboard, and Deadspin’s podcast guffaws, led by Drew Magary.

Organizations thrive when individual members come together in pursuit of a higher goal (in our case, the celebration of great names). One person who understands this well is Dragonwagon Regional seven-seed Candida Seasock, the founder of a business mentorship firm called CTS Associates.

In her line of work, Candida meets with businesses that range from Fortune 500 to emerging companies. She leads the award-winning “Growth Path to Success,” which “is based on targeted business development, strategic marketing, fostering strong and long-term client relationships and implementing 360-degree agility into a company’s processes and operations.”

One piece of advice Candida offers concerns smart hiring practices. If companies only look to check off boxes on a job description, they could enlist toxic employees and negatively affect their culture. “Skills can be taught or developed, but honesty and integrity are found from within,” she told The Huffington Post in 2016.

It’s not just Candida’s clients who work together efficiently; her name is highly synergistic as well. Its syllables undulate pleasantly from stressed to unstressed, and its sharp /ee/ sounds, arranged in an assonant pair, hit like snare drums. Lexically, she offers both brains and brawn. Candida’s first name evokes the legendary wit of Voltaire, while her surname conjures an image of a forceful, briny gust of wind.

Thanks to those interwoven elements, Candida earned a decisive first-round victory over 10-seed Adele Gorrilla. In her next matchup, she’ll face an opponent whose moniker has its own ties to corporate America: 15-seed Yo’Heinz Tyler, who hails from Louisiana but shares a name with a company based in Pittsburgh. If the incoming Ball State freshman wide receiver winds up catching passes for the Steelers at Heinz Field one day, he’ll pull off one of the greatest feats of synergy the business world has ever seen.

But first, he’ll have to get past Candida. Eight matchups are below. Vote. Share. Tweet.

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 La Royce Lobster-Gaines vs. #9 Delicious Peters

Who has your vote?

#12 Chosen Roach vs. #4 Chardonnay Beaver

Who has your vote?

#11 Forbes Thor Kiddoo vs. #3 Quindarious Gooch

Who has your vote?

#7 Candida Seasock vs. #15 Yo'Heinz Tyler

Who has your vote?

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL, ROUND TWO

#1 Dr. Narwhals Mating vs. #9 Mahogany Loggins

Who has your vote?

#5 Rev. Hobbit Forrest vs. #4 Beau Titsworth

Who has your vote?

#11 Hallelujah Lulie vs. #3 Dr. Taekwondo Byrd

Who has your vote?

#10 Gandalf Hernandez vs. #2 Shaka Licorish

Who has your vote?

Money, religion, and politics. Emily Post might suggest that they’re not to be discussed in polite company, because they’re likely to cause a squabble among even the most mild-mannered conversants. But then over the Easter ham or Passover brisket, your creepy uncle simply has to mention just this one thing he read online. Politifact rated it “Pants on Fire,” but he doesn’t care. You may know to ignore him, but a naive cousin or family friend might be less wise. Then suddenly tempers are flaring and you can feel your pulse behind your eyes. Feelings will get hurt. Relatives could become estranged. Kugle may be thrown.

So in today’s darker times, allow Name of the Year to serve as a beacon of fireproof pants. All of our names are real, submitted by our real-life readers, individually vetted and dissected by the high committee before being presented to the voting public for discussion and debate. We don’t allow Reddit-style resentment to muddle our view. So just as we do in our work of whittling hundreds of premium monikers down to 64, four-seed Chardonnay Beaver seeks to cut through emotional bias in her work as a mediator at Garfield High School.

“A lot of these issues are about unintentional or irrational reactions so my goal is to come in as a leader and just as a peer,” Beaver said in an interview with the Garfield Messenger. “So [I] come in and, you know, ‘What I hear you saying is this. Can you explain it to that person so they get a clearer view?’ Fixing misinterpretations so that they leave the meeting feeling good.”

Compared to the Fox News headlines-cum-White House tweets, such open-mindedness is refreshing. The most mature voices in room are now high schoolers like Beaver, who yearn to speak honestly about painful issues. Teenagers move us to march for our beliefs and change the world for the oppressed. And Name of the Year is proud to see our new leaders widely represented in this year’s Sweet Sixteen: Chardonnay Beaver, of course, but also Fruithandler one-seed Makenlove Petit-Fard, Bulltron three-seed Mosthigh Thankgod, and Chrotchtangle four-seed Beau Titsworth, among others. These youths represent the best of their generation not just in attitude, as above, but also in name, as you’re about to vote below.

With each post we remind you to follow us on Twitter, but this week we remind you to do so responsibly. Do not follow us on Twitter with malice and anger, like a certain orange president. Do not follow us on Twitter with deceit, like a certain 13-seed whose alleged threat to wallop a policeman was only misdirection. Instead, follow us on Twitter with kindness. Follow us on Twitter with an open mind. Follow us on Twitter with honesty or as Beaver might: with positivity. “If we just focus on the positivity and the energy of each other and we know how to act off of that, there are so many things we can do.”

Thanks to Evan Gregory for the Sweet Sixteen bracket above. Please vote below and, of course, remember to follow us on Twitter.

SWEET SIXTEEN

BULLTRON REGIONAL

#1 Salami Blessing vs. #13 Miracle Crimes

Who has your vote?

#3 Mosthigh Thankgod vs. #2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper

Who has your vote?

FRUITHANDLER REGIONAL

#1 Makenlove Petit-Fard vs. #12 Dr. Megha Panda

Who has your vote?

#11 Covadonga del Busto Naval vs. #2 Rev. Dongo Pewee

Who has your vote?

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL

#9 Delicious Peters vs. #4 Chardonnay Beaver

Who has your vote?

#3 Quindarious Gooch vs. #7 Candida Seasock

Who has your vote?

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL

#1 Dr. Narwhals Mating vs. #4 Beau Titsworth

Who has your vote?

#3 Dr. Taekwondo Byrd vs. #10 Gandalf Hernandez

Who has your vote?

An elephant is sitting on your chest. You can barely breathe. 911. EMS. Stretcher, aspirin, nitroglycerin, oxygen mask. Stickers all over your chest. EKG. Screaming ambulance. A harried doctor approaches. You might be having a heart attack. We need to stick a wire into your heart.

“Dr. Prospero Gogo,” he says. “Please consent for catheterization.”

Another pill. Sleep. You wake under a warm blanket, groggy but pain free. Good news: You’re alive. Bad news: You need a bypass. A coiffed man in a long white coat strides into your fluorescent room.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Loki Skylizard,” he says, “and I will be operating on your heart.”

Across the country, NOTY nominees are keeping America healthy. Dr. Loki Skylizard (NOTY 2014) is a cardiothoracic surgeon who changed his name as a child and stuck with it. Dr. Prospero Gogo (2017) is a cardiologist in Vermont. If Florida is your home, Dr. SkyHawk Fadigan (2013) might do your next pap smear. Lyme disease got you down in New Jersey? Paging infectious disease specialist Dr. Jihad Slim (1999).

As E.R. took off in the 1990s, so did physician NOTY nominees. Dr. Slim was joined by New York City pediatrician Dr. Barney Softness and then Brooklyn dentist Dr. Constant Jose. This decade has brought a rush of white coats: Dr. Speedy Nutz, Dr. Festus Dada, 2011 NOTY winner Dr. Taco BM Monster, Dr. Suparman Marzuki, Dr. Electron Kebebew, and this year’s No. 1 seed in the Chrochtangle Regional, Dr. Narwhals Mating.

The vivid imagery of Dr. Mating’s name—horny horned whales, the unicorns of the sea, copulating freely—contrasts his obscure origin. Narwhals Mating was first listed as a member of the Hennepin County (Minn.) Medical Society in 2000, when he graduated from University of Minnesota’s medical school. After a family-medicine residency in Wisconsin, Dr. Mating moved to California’s central valley, where he practices now.

This year wasn’t our first Narwhals sighting. A reader submitted his name in 2011, during a period of NOTY hiatus. When we did not respond, they wrote again, concerned that the good doctor was lost in a deluge of email. They weren’t wrong; the High Committee never considered his name. He was lost in the shuffle again in 2016. Finally, this year, Mating surfaced.

Your author, Steel, is the High Committee’s resident physician. He called Dr. Mating’s office for a peer-to-peer discussion of his onomastic origin. The doctor was out. But a public records search yielded news that Dr. Narwhals Mating used to be Raymond Rex Spisak.

Shudders? Horrors? Petitions for his removal? Nah. A legal name change is a legal name change. Precedent was established in the 1980s, when Birdie Africa and his family members (who were in involved in a crazy bombing by Philadelphia police) were welcomed to the ballot. Then came one Crescent Dragonwagon, the Hall of Name member who changed her name at age 16.

So far, Dr. Mating has successfully operated on the 16, 9 and 4 seeds in the Chrotchtangle—Clinton Bacon, Mahogany Loggins, and Beau Titsworth. Of the five docs in the original field of 64, he is the last one standing. Will he slice open Gandalf Hernandez like his previous opponents? Or will the doctor be forced to hang up his stethoscope? Say ahhhh, and vote in all four Elite Eight match-ups below.

Thanks again to Evan Gregory for the updated bracket.

THE ELITE EIGHT

BULLTRON REGIONAL FINAL

#1 Salami Blessing vs. #2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper

Who has your vote?

FRUITHANDLER REGIONAL FINAL

#1 Makenlove Petit-Fard vs. #2 Rev. Dongo Pewee

Who has your vote?

DRAGONWAGON REGIONAL FINAL

#9 Delicious Peters vs. #3 Quindarious Gooch

Who has your vote?

CHROTCHTANGLE REGIONAL FINAL

#1 Dr. Narwhals Mating vs. #10 Gandalf Hernandez

Who has your vote?

We've come a long way since we set our field of 64. Over the past few weeks, Tuna Altuna has been canned, Corky Boozé has been bottled up, Lola Honeybone has been broken, and Genuine Potts has been flushed. We’re down to our Final Four: Jimbob Ghostkeeper, Makenlove Petit-Fard, Delicious Peters, and Dr. Narwhals Mating.

All of the name-inees we select for our yearly celebration theoretically possess the exact same chance to claim the title. NOTY prognosticators, however will tell you that some names are worth paying attention to from the start, while others don’t stand much of a chance of passing the first round (sorry, Clinton Bacon.) It’s the same logic that gets applied to the NCAA tournament each year: Any team could win any game, but we all know a 16-seed will never beat a one.

This was a pretty good year for predictive NOTY analysis. Two of the names that ended up in the Final Four, Dr. Mating and Mr. Petit-Fard, were the top seeds in their respective regionals and were clear favorites to advance this far. Jimbob Ghostkeeper, seeded on the two-line, was no slouch either. It became clear that the Canadian minor-league hockey player would make a deep run after multiple people changed their Twitter display names to match his.

Even Delicious Peters, a nominal underdog as a nine-seed, was easy to spot as this year’s Cinderella. When we introduced our 2018 bracket via Deadspin, commenters picked out Peters as one of their favorites. If you don't find that to be a telling measure, consider that last year's Deadspin commenter favorites included Boats Botes, the eventual People’s Champion.

You may agree with our assessment that these names were destined for greatness or you may accuse us of playing Quindarious Monday Morning Quarterback, but no matter what, you now can put your money where your mouth is. The English bookmaker Pinnacle is offering odds on Name of the Year. That's right, you can bet on NOTY.

We weren't consulted, but the lines seem pretty accurate: in order, Mating, Petit-Fard, Ghostkeeper, Peters. Two more rounds of balloting will crown your 2018 Name of the Year. Bring us home by voting below. And, as always, follow us on Twitter for updates.

THE FINAL FOUR

#2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper vs. #1 Makenlove Petit-Fard

Who has your vote?

#9 Delicious Peters vs. #1 Dr. Narwhals Mating

Who has your vote?

For one of the two men who have made it to this year's Name of the Year final, destiny awaits.

By this time next week, Canadian hockey player Jimbob Ghostkeeper or California family practitioner Dr. Narwhals Mating will be etched in NOTY lore. By navigating another wildly competitive field, the 2018 winner will join an exclusive club—one that brings deserved glory, but also reflects the weight of owning a spectacular name.

First let’s recap paths our finalists took through the bracket. Ghostkeeper, who played a few games for the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers midget AA hockey team in Alberta, tore through the Bulltron Regional like a winger on a breakaway. The No. 2 seed skated past, in order, Travis-Couture Lovelady, Dr. Dimple Royalty, Mosthigh Thankgod, No. 1 Salami Blessing, and, in the Final Four, Makenlove Petit-Fard.

Handicappers—literally the sports book Pinnacle—had Dr. Mating as the favorite to win it all. Seeded No. 1 in the Chrotchtangle Regional, the doctor (whose original name, we’ve learned, was Raymond Rex Spisak) took care of Clinton Bacon, Mahogany Loggins, Beau Titsworth, and Gandalf Hernandez. His Final Four opponent, Delicious Peters, was a light lunch.

The winner of this championship throwdown will earn more than just an inside track to the Hall of Name. Our 2010 co-winner, Australian rules footballer Steele Sidebottom, generated headlines around the globe. A year after his 2014 title, English soccer coachShamus Beaglehole turned up in a crossword puzzle by New York Times contributor Brendan Emmett Quigley. Ooh, 36 Across, we think we know that one.

But possessing a name strong enough to earn these laurels can be a burden. Consider 2008 co-champ and former Kansas softball star Destiny Frankenstein. In a recent article in the Tulsa World about the family name, Destiny’s father, Wes, said that schoolmates asked to see the bolts in his neck and made endless references to Young Frankenstein. “You just get tired of the class clowns,” Wes said. “They really rode it hard.”

Destiny said she didn’t experience the same level of schoolyard teasing. In fact, she campaigned openly during her NOTY run. “I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that they thought I could beat them up, but I never beat anyone up,” Destiny said. “I was a softball player, and softball players have big muscles apparently.”

But then Destiny met and married a fellow Oklahoman named Steven King—yes, Destiny Frankenstein married Steven King—and opted to take his surname. Destiny told the paper she’s still proud of the Frankenstein name but was happy to trade it for something shorter.

We're not worried about Jimbob Ghostkeeper or Dr. Narwhals Mating ditching their monikers. After all, Dr. Narwhals Mating changed his name to Dr. Narwhals Mating. And who wouldn’t want to be named Jimbob Ghostkeeper?

Vote for one of them below, and follow us on Twitter.

Thanks to Evan Gregory of the Gregory Brothers for filling in the bracket each round. And to our friends at Deadspin for hosting.

NAME OF THE YEAR FINAL

#2 Jimbob Ghostkeeper vs. #1 Dr. Narwhals Mating

Who has your vote?

Here at NOTY, it’s axiomatic that a truly great name has it going both ways. Just look at the Hall of Name: Assumption Bulltron, Nimrod Weiselfish, Tanqueray Beavers, Princess Nocandy, Vanilla Dong, Destiny Frankenstein. And we haven’t inducted a new class in a while, so no Barkevious Mingo, Taco B.M. Monster, Nohjay Nimpson or last year’s winner, Kobe Buffalomeat. First name and surname, front and back, top and bottom. These great names bring it every which way.

Your 2018 Name of the Year does too. With surprising ease, Canadian hockey player Jimbob Ghostkeeper waffleboarded away Dr. Narwhals Mating in the championship final, racking up a whopping 57 percent of the more than 7,500 votes cast.

Let’s start with the champ’s surname. Ghostkeeper is a 1981 Canadian horror movie in which unseemly things happen to a trio of snowmobilers stranded in an abandoned ski lodge in the Rockies. The plot is loosely based on a Native folklore tale. That make sense because Ghostkeeper is an English translation of a Cree Métis name, Kanachakhtwin, or “keeper of the spirits.” Ghostkeeper also is a Calgary band fronted by Shane Ghostkeeper. He was asked about his family name in a 2010 interview:

“There’s a few stories going around,” Ghostkeeper says. “One anthropologist lady where we grew up said it refers to the fact that there are medicine men in my family. It’s been a long line, and it keeps getting passed down, and it has to do with having knowledge of ceremonies that are used to conduct communications with the other entities that exist among us, the spirits.

“But one of the funny stories that my dad and his family like to tell is that his great-grandpa, in a Métis settlement area called Kathleen, north of Edmonton, was known for taking care of the graveyard, so they called him ‘Ghostkeeper’ as a nickname—and then his kids took it on as a legal last name.”

Cool etymology either way. But Jimbob? What’s Jimbob doing there? Plenty. First, kudos for the closed compound, bucking the traditional two-word construction. Second, there’s a complementary dissonance between “Jimbob” and Ghostkeeper” that makes the name pop, and it also scans nicely when spoken. Finally, while the first name sounds Southern, you can find it in Canada, where Bob's your uncle and Jim Bob might be too.

So add Jimbob Ghostkeeper to the list of famous JBs: Jim Bob Duggar, patriarch of that TV family with 19 kids, one of whom molested some of his sisters; the hyphenated Jim-Bob Walton, the youngest son on the 1970s TV show about a Depression-era rural Virginia family that spawned the catchphrase "Goodnight, John-Boy"; and Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter, who told the Detroit Free Press in 2015, “I'm from Tennessee and I’m from pretty southern Tennessee. I mean, it’s on down there pretty good. There’s a lot of people with two names. A lot of spaces out there in my classroom growing up.”

A lot of spaces out there. That's fantastic. Up in in Alberta, though, no space for Jimbob—or possibly JimBob, depending on whether you find the 2018 Name of the Year playing for the Midget A Rangers of Fort Saskatchewan or the Steelhounds of the Edmonton Non Contact Hockey League. If this is out winner—and we really hope it is because he loves hockey and baseball and believes Joey Chestnut is the greatest athlete of all time*—then based on the initials we conclude lowercase. In any event, Ghostkeeper apparently is a big guy who, per this thread on a Canadian hockey forum, isn’t afraid to swap knuckles:

Native, and now champion.

Thanks to everyone who voted, and to our friends at Deadspin for cohosting the tournament. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @NOTYtourney and submit your 2019 nominees to nameoftheyear@gmail.com. Until next year, good night, Jimbob.

*Update: It is him. Jimbob didn't respond to our DM on Twitter, but he did email Deadspin:

Hey guys, thanks for the best name of 2018! Hahaha never knew I was even nominated

- Jb Ghostkeeper

Hi. Remember us? As you may recall, many months ago you crowned Canadian hockey player Jimbob Ghostkeeper as your Name of the Year. It was an excellent choice. In fact, if you ask me, young Jimbob possessed the best name in our entire 2018 field.

But my opinion is not the only one that matters in the world of NOTY. Our High Committee consists of more than a dozen individuals, all of whom have their own tastes. Some of us swoon over names that reference pop culture. For others, the mellifluous sound of a well-metered name is paramount. Still more of us are unable to resist the pull of a name that sounds like it was invented in a boys’ locker room.

Despite our varying preferences, we attempt to reach a annual consensus on who we feel deserves the Name of the Year crown. The naminee chosen by our High Committee vote is no less of a champion than the one selected by all of you. In our archive, the two winners live side by side in onomastic harmony.

This year’s High Committee vote came down to a tight three-way finish. Would Jimbob Ghostkeeper achieve the rare People’s Choice-High Committee double, as did Vanilla Dong in 2007 and Shamus Beaglehole in 2014? Would Salami Blessing ride the top overall seed to victory, just like Kobe Buffalomeat did last year? Or would Dr. Narwhals Mating reach the point of climax despite the controversy surrounding his name change?

Ultimately, after receiving the most overall points in our advanced scoring system and receiving the most first-place votes from our Committee, it was Salami Blessing, a recent engineering school graduate from Nigeria, who came out on top.

That Ms. Blessing would win the High Committee voting despite already claiming the honor of our top overall seed speaks to her drive and ambition. She recently picked up a degree in chemical engineering from Covenant University, located outside of Lagos. During the 2014-15 school year, her GPA was an eye-popping 4.64, a figure that speaks to her skill as a student.

She was able to maintain her high grades thanks to her dedicated study habits. She often spent long hours in the library, driven by her passion for engineering and her desire to make a name for herself. In an interview with the publication Punch, she said she would like to follow in the footsteps of Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian business magnate who is the richest Black person in the world.

“What really kept me going were prayers, purpose, dedication and sustained commitment and determination,” she said, regarding her approach to schoolwork. “I had the drive and discipline to tackle any task with enthusiasm and determination.”

Here at NOTY, we love Ms. Blessing’s attitude -- and her name. Her handle evokes encased Italian meats, old-school network dramas, and miracles descending from on high. We send our congratulations to her on her victory, and we hope she will achieve the big things she has planned for her life.

---

Last year's High Committee winner has been decided, but there are still many more names to chew on, debates to debate, and votes to come. We'll be back shortly with news on the 2019 bracket. Stay tuned.

As you may have noticed, we have not used this site very much this year, even though our annual festivities have begun over at Deadspin. If you're just checking in for the first time, there's still plenty of opportunities to help us choose the 2019 Name of the Year. The first half of the second round is open right now. Go forth and check out the polls.

The reason why we're distributing via Deadspin rather than over here is that the Blogger platform on which this website is built is badly outdated and incompatible with many modern design formats, which makes the process of gathering research, posting polls, and including images unnecessarily difficult. We're in the progress of transferring over to a new platform and are still looking for anyone who may want to help us with that transfer. If you are, email us at nameoftheyear@gmail.com and we may contact you after the business of deciding the 2019 Name of the Year is complete.

In the meantime, expect all of this year's polls and posts to be published via Deadspin. The first of the two links included above will update as the rounds progress. And of course you can follow us on Twitter for updates.

We apologize for the inconvenience that we may have caused within your RSS readers.

2017 Name of the Year: Dragonwagon Regional, Round One

2017 Name of the Year: Chrotchtangle Regional, Round One

2017 Name of the Year: Bulltron and Sithole Regionals, Round Two

2017 Name of the Year: Dragonwagon and Chrotchtangle Regionals, Round Two

2017 Name of the Year: The Sweet Sixteen

2017 Name of the Year: The Elite Eight

2017 Name of the Year: The Final Four

Name of the Year final: YourMajesty Lumpkins vs. Botes Boats

Boats Botes Is Your 2017 Name Of The Year

Kobe Buffalomeat Is Our 2017 Name of the Year

In Praise of Kobe Buffalomeat

Presenting Your 2018 Name of the Year Ballot

2018 Name of the Year: Bulltron Regional, Round One

2018 Name of the Year: Fruithandler Regional, Round One

2018 Name of the Year: Dragonwagon Regional, Round One

2018 Name of the Year: Chrotchtangle Regional, Round One

2018 Name of the Year: Bulltron and Fruithandler, Round Two

2018 Name of the Year: Dragonwagon and Chrotchtangle, Round Two

2017 Name of the Year: The Sweet Sixteen

2018 Name of the Year: The Elite Eight

2018 Name of the Year: The Final Four

2018 Name of the Year Final: Jimbob Ghostkeeper v. Dr. Narwhals Mating

Jimbob Ghostkeeper Is Your 2018 Name of the Year

Our High Committee Winner, And Votes To Come

A note for our website visitors