Random auto thought about names
Naming is innate. All humans give specific names to each other, and nearly all human cultures use two names.

The order varies, and the non-individual name has a few different flavors.

Flavor 1: Family or clan. All Chinese secondary names are family.

Flavor 2: Function or character. John Carpenter, Horace Hazard (=gambler), Wilhelm Langbein, Ernest Runs-With-Wolf.

Flavor 3: Location. In the upper castes this merges with family, as in German von and French or Spanish de. When you're from the castle of Wolf, you belong to the Wolf clan.

Constant:

Cars have a similar two-part name. A family name like Chrysler or Ford, and a given name like Pacifica or F150. This has been true from the start.

Variable:

Cars have a third element, which is mostly missing from human names. Cars always have a vintage or generation. Ford Fairlane is meaningless unless you add the vintage. A 1955 Ford Fairlane and a 1963 Ford Fairlane are different types of cars.

Some cars have a more explicit generation indicator that spans several years, as in Packard's 4th Series or Lincoln's Mark VI.

Among humans, only the clan names ever contained a generation. English and Teutonic son/sohn, Irish O', Scottish Mac, Arabic Bin. In the original small villages where everyone knew all families, these son names were unique. Now they've degenerated (heh) into permanent clan names.

The sequence of Senior / Junior / III / IV also denotes generations in the same way as Packard or Lincoln, but this is a relatively rare practice, not even universal among aristocrats.

Only Iceland retains the original specified generation. Thorsdottir is the physical daughter of actual Thor, not the 156th descendant from some long-lost Thor.

No human naming scheme has ever included a vintage, even though birth year is important for many legal purposes.

= = = = =

Tacking on a Plymouth oddity. From '49 through '54, Plymouth sold a significant number of 'chassis and cab' units. About 2000 each year, and finally 5000 in '54. The practice stopped in '55. What were these for? Nobody built hearses on Plymouth chassis. If someone wanted a low-priced limo with Chrysler parts, DeSoto was filling that niche nicely. Plymouths were popular as taxis in cities that didn't require limos, but I've seen plenty of them in movies and pictures. They're strictly standard, not extended or coachbuilt. Possibly these were CKD for export, but the book that gave these lists normally separates out export items.

Labels: Asked and not worth asking, Constants and Variables

  ¶ 6:24 AM