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

April 26, 2018, 9:14 am

≫ Next: Jimbob Ghostkeeper Is Your 2018 Name of the Year

≪ Previous: 2018 Name of the Year: The Final Four

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?

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Jimbob Ghostkeeper Is Your 2018 Name of the Year

May 3, 2018, 10:25 am

≫ Next: Our High Committee Winner, And Votes To Come

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

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

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Our High Committee Winner, And Votes To Come

March 20, 2019, 12:07 pm

≫ Next: A note for our website visitors

≪ Previous: Jimbob Ghostkeeper Is Your 2018 Name of the Year

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.

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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.

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A note for our website visitors

April 9, 2019, 3:08 pm

≪ Previous: Our High Committee Winner, And Votes To Come

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.

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