Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans…

Spam!

When I began Nook of Names, my notion of spam was limited to those irritating emails that choke up your inbox trying to sell you various funny pills from Canada.

But aware that spammers like to comment on articles and blogs — usually advertising dating agencies — I ensured I had Akismet up, along with comment moderation, and off I went in blissful ignorance.

All was well for a while, then, all of a sudden, with little warning, the spam started pouring in!

It quickly became apparent that flattery is the favorite tool of these spammers. Presumably they like to deceive the unwitting, getting a foot in the door by massaging your ego — and then slapping up the links to the dating sites and dodgy pharmaceuticals.

Fortunately, they’re clearly all so busy working their way around forums and blogs that they don’t actually stop to read what they’re commenting on. And so, while at first, I debated long and hard over whether a comment might be genuine when attached to an article I’d spent a lot of time and effort writing, alarm bells rang loudly indeed when as yet empty pages in the index were getting Olympian praise!

Still, as I always say, name inspiration lies everywhere, and, being a name geek, I couldn’t help pause to reflect on my spammers’ names (chosen names, anyway, as I’d be surprised if any real names ever get used in Spamland). So, in tribute to all the spammers out there, spending their free hours thoroughly cheesing off bloggers and readers of every kind, here’s a look at the stand-out spam.licio.us names I’ve had so far:

• Azia — very Arabian nights. A respelling of Asia. In Portuguese azia means ‘heart-burn’ — quite appropriate for a spammer.
• Bubbie — Bubbie? Or Boobie?
• Chamomile — pretty, and quite pertinent choice for a spammy comment at Nook of Names. 9 out of 10 for trying. Still overall ‘fail’ though.
• Chynna — variant spelling of China. The  ‘yn’ names are popular among the spamalots. Others I’ve had include Geralynn and Geralyn, Jayne, Jolyn, Kalyn and Suzyn.
• Darrence — born from a demonic coupling of Darren and Clarence; guaranteed to start a migraine… here come those flashing lights!
• Dayanara — Quirky Latin American respelling of the Greek Deïaneira meaning ‘destroying men’. Name of a Puerto Rican actress.
• Dreama — shouldn’t you be doing your homework, not spamming a blog about names?
• Essence — great name, up their with Chamomile. Still spam.
• Gwenelda — kewl! Has actually since very limited genuine use in real life since the 19th Century. Essentially, an elaboration of Gwen with the -elda of Griselda, etc. Very witchy! 🙂 for effort.
• Honney –- can’t make up my mind whether this is a deliberate respelling of Honey or not. Normally, I give people the benefit of the doubt,  but since dreadful spelling seems to be one of a spammer’s most essential life skills, I fear the double ‘n’ in this instance is purely accidental.
• Namari — straight from Japanese manga. Namari does, however, remind me of the beautiful elven Namárië — ‘farewell’ in Quenya (one of Tolkien’s invented languages). But I suspect that Namari Spam plucked his/her name from the manga.
• Stone — ooo, what’s this? Might this spammer have delved deeply enough into the Nook to think a nature name might convince me he/she was genuine? Doubt it.
• Tessica — inventive cross between Tess/Tessa and Jessica, elaboration of Tess or Tessa + the suffix -ica, or variant of Jessica, under the influence of Tess/Tessa. Quite liked this one. There are a handful of genuine Tessica’s out there; the first appearing in the early 30s.
• Tyanne — Knot? No doubt conceived as a variant of Tiana.
• Valinda — great vampire name, Valinda — which rather suits a spammer, since spammers are a kind of an online equivalent of vampires. Valinda’s actually been around since the 19th Century, and is an elaboration of the Val- of Valentine, etc with the popular literary suffix -inda. I suspect it may feature in some piece of Victorian fiction, but nothing obvious leaps out.
• Zavrina — exotic! Zavrina is the feminine form of Zavrin, a Slavic surname. Some baby-name sites like to call it a form of Sabrina — but fail to indicate in which Earth language.
• Zubris — it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it. Beam me up, Scotty! Now! Please!

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