Give Your House a Name

I heard a brief story on the radio this morning on how naming your house will get you a higher price when it comes time to sell. Quoting an apparently snobby realtor the reporter finished by cautioning you should only name your house if it’s worth over 20 million. The realtor thought it would be pretentious to name your house if its worth was below that.

Over the years I’ve named plenty of houses, but none of them were my own. Growing up we knew most of our neighbors, at least their last names, so their homes were always referred to by the owners. The original owners could be long gone but we’d still refer to the house by using their name.  If we didn’t know the owners we called the house by a feature of the home or property. For example, there was a house a few blocks away that was known as the fountain house because there was a drinking fountain attached to an outside wall.  My sister Shauna and a friend found a home in San Leandro whose yard was paved over. No yard, no grass, just pavement. Guess what we called it? Totally original:  the cement house.

When we moved into our new home the kids named several of the houses in the neighborhood. There was Mustard Man’s house across the street, named for the color of his house, not by what he put on his ham sandwich. There was the angle house a few doors down due to the many corners and angles the homes design has. Some houses were named because of events like Dead Tony’s house. Tony was a single elderly man who was best known in the new neighborhood for watering his weeds. He died shortly after we moved in. A second man died in a house on a few doors down in the other direction. It became known as the other dead guy’s house.

Naming a house seems like a charming thing to do.  The last James Bond movie SkyFall was the name given the boyhood home of the famous spy.  In fact, there’s actually a website that will help you come up with your own house name. Here’s a link: http://www.housenameheritage.com/default.asp

The site provides names of houses in various languages along with some of their meanings. Somehow other languages seem to have one word, that when translated into English, is actually an entire phrase. Because of this many names of homes are in a foreign language, usually a very obscure language.  For example, the Zwengalii word “Coluellala” translated into English means  “the man in this house eats lots of pizza and likes to sing funny songs to his children during the night of the full moon.”  OK, I did just make that up but it sort of proves my point.

On this website some of the best house names were of Australian Aboriginal origin. There’s Alawoona: meaning a “Place of hot winds.” Most likely named for the hot air that comes from the owners. Bundala means “A Large Person.” If you lost some weight you might have to change the name. Culgoa: meaning “a river running through it.” Probably named for a plumbing disaster. There’s  Edibegebege referring to “Plenty of Fleas” a home I’m sure we’d all love to own.   Then for the house with lots of hungry kids there’s the name Maradana, meaning  “animals grazing.”

There’s also a Gaelic term, “Cairn” meaning” a mound of stones marking a gravesite.”  And there’s the Latin: Nessun Dorma meaning “none shall sleep” that was found on a home that was next to the train tracks.

Finally, here’s my personal favorite. In fact, I think I would name my house this if only I knew how to pronounce it. It’s Maori- Titirangi. The translation: “The Fringe of Heaven.”  A house name like that just makes you feel safe, secure and protected, a place that would be home.