A NAME FOR A BOAT
A request for the name of a sea bird, a name to be used for a boat, came to me at my desk in the museum one day. My memory was quickly exhausted with sea gull, sea swallow, and albatross. But I keep within reach the handy guide, Birds of the Ocean, by W. B. Alexander. In the index I found twenty pages of names, two columns to a page. They started with aalge, Uria, and went on down through the alphabet to yelkouan, Puffinus, and to zimmermanni, Sterna.
EUPHONY NEEDED A name should be short, pleasant-sounding, and easy to remember and to say, so obviously such words as Macronectes, Brachyramphus, Aptenodytes, and Coprotheres are ruled out among the scientific names. But further, when choosing a name for a boat from among those of water birds, one should consider the kind of a boat. There should be some appropriateness; some points of resemblance between the boat and the bird, or between the boat owner and the bird. Albatross seems right for a seagoing sailing ship, sailing to southern oceans; tern (or sea swallow) appropriate for light, dainty coastal sailing craft; puffin or auk or murre for power craft, for these birds spend most of their time stolidly on the water and when they fly have a direct buzzing flight. Loon and dabchick would do well for fresh-water boats. But one objection to both them and the various auks for a name is that these birds spend much time swimming underwater. They might better give their names to submarines. The big, stocky sea ducks, called scoters and eiders might suit some stout craft that ply to arctic waters.
SCIENTIFIC NAMES AVAILABLE I reviewed the host of other names. Scientific names need not be ignored either. What is nicer than Gygis, the name of the white, fairy, or love tern of the South Seas for a small summer sail boat? Then going farther afield into austral waters for far traveling craft there's Diomedea, the name of the albatross, and Daption, the medium-sized petrel that also is called pintado for the same reason a white-splashed horse is called a pinto, and Prion, the tiny whalebirds of the antarctic whose blue-gray back is near the ideal ocean-camouflage color. Larus, a good honest name without frills, belonging to the gulls that haunt our harbors, coasts, and lakes, would do for a plain, everyday sort of boat. Kittiwake is another gull that spends more time at sea. Gannets are boldly black and white, strong-flying birds of the North Atlantic, and one could use that, or its scientific equivalent, Moris, for a boat.
Penguin and pelican I'm doubtful about; I can't imagine a boat for either. Skua or jaeger would, of course, be a lovely symbol for a pirate vessel, as would frigate bird; both are birds that practice the stand-and-deliver method of getting food from weaker fisherfolk. The petrels called shearwaters are among the hardiest seagoing birds, but the name has little association for most people beyond wondering if they feed around breakwaters. Petrel itself isn't a bad name, though one might think of the storm petrels, which are also called Mother Carey's chickens, and have been considered the souls of drowned sailors, though their name perhaps refers to Peter, and his attempt to walk on the water, as these birds are continually trying to do.
Phalaropes are snipes of sorts that have taken up a periodic seagoing habit, and their name might often be appropriate. Even their habit of spinning quickly about as they sit on the water might still agree. A Chicago man named his Chris-Craft Sandpiper, after, as he said, the bird that goes hopping along the beach before the waves.
Sula is a good sort of a word, and the name of birds that are strong, swift fliers of the tropics. But in English they're usually called booby, which is an English word meaning simpleton (which name the birds got from stupidly perching on ships). Alle for the little auk or dovekie would do for a tiny boat in northern waters, and I knew of one boat called the Alca, after the razor-billed auk, while Cepphus, the name of the black guillemots, is equally good, as is both Lunda and its equivalent puffin.
Some names have a stark simplicity that would attract few, like shag, used for the cormorant, and muttonbird for a petrel. The cahow people might shy from because for many years we were not sure whether this West Indian petrel was extinct or not.
Myself, there are two names I rather like and I've been saving for the last: for a small sailboat I'd say the Wideawake, as the sooty tern is called in its tropical home, and the other, for a larger seagoing boat, is the Mollymawk, a sailor's name for the albatross.