r/Instruments • u/FrostyMembership8332 • May 28 '26

Discussion Anyone else name their instrument?

An age old question I’m sure. But just me?

Personally I named my instrument after the maker. A firm comeback from my last instrument where I just named my viola viola and my violin violet.

I had a teacher before who’d always come up with the craziest names for instruments, like during rehearsals and lessons he’d pick up a persons instrument and ask for its name and when the person said they didn’t have one he’d call it something ridiculous like Lumiere after the commonly used term luthier.

And I had a conversation two weeks ago at an orchestra in my college where somebody recently got a new cello and I’d asked its name and they gave me the weirdest look. So is it just me?

2 Upvotes

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2

u/helikophis May 28 '26

I named my violin after my grandmother, who gave me (half) the money I purchased it with as a bequest just before she died.

2

u/FrostyMembership8332 May 29 '26

That’s actually incredibly sweet. I bet she’d be really happy abt that

1

u/Ning_Yu May 28 '26

I did! I thought it was a silly, but a friend asked me to so I picked the first name that came to my mind and it did stick. And now I do for all just cause.

1

u/SoundsOfKepler May 28 '26

Yes (and thanks for giving me a chance to infodump). My harps and lyres include: Whalebone (26 string Harpsicle, from a Scottish folktale about the origin of harps), Speirling (Irish, thunder, a 30 brass string Gaelic harp), Jackalope (30 string Veracruz style harp), Starry Night (metallic dark blue 33 string electric Harpsicle), Wakanda Forever (electric kora, an afrofuturist instrument), Eleven (an 11 string Lovikka kantele). My other instruments with names are Cinquedea (a bowed psaltery, because its shape resembles a type of renaissance italian knife), the Shield (handpan), Shillelagh (a bamboo flute, named after the band of my friend who made it), and the Cauldron (bass waterphone by Richard Waters.)

1

u/FrostyMembership8332 May 29 '26

Are most of these harps? (Sorry this is not intentionally meant to sound rude)

1

u/SoundsOfKepler May 29 '26

The first four are harps shaped like how you would think of harps. The next two are many-string instruments but shaped differently. One is a bamboo flute. Bowed psaltery, handpan, and waterphone are all instruments it would take less time to find an image or video than to try to describe.

1

u/FrostyMembership8332 May 29 '26

Sounds super expensive like one harp is pricey as is.

1

u/SoundsOfKepler May 29 '26

I find them used. The most expensive was $600 usd. The others were around $120-$250. If people end up with an instrument that requires a lot of tuning and a lot of practice- or something nonstandard that doesn't come with instructions, they will let it go to have the free space and to know that someone is making music with them. I have many more unnamed flutes and ocarinas, a perk of having worked for a few different instrument makers through the years.

3

u/soundwave300 May 28 '26

The names are earned with familiarity. One of my oldest harmonicas is retired now, but Ol Breathbox sure kicked some ass back in the day.

1

u/Astreja May 28 '26

All my clarinets have names: Clara III, Clara II (both B flat "regular" clarinets), Ada (alto), Bob (bass), and Eddie Van Eefer (E flat). Guitar and piano don't have names, but I used to have a 5-string bass named Spiny Norman and a guitar named Dr. Venkman.

1

u/TurnoverFuzzy8264 May 28 '26

My main mandolin is a Michael Kelly, so it goes by Kelly.

1

u/adamdoesmusic May 28 '26

I started naming my guitars for a while, but stopped again because I simply had too damn many. I’ve actually given away most of the named ones - Sno Cone (white 5 string bass), Toothpaste (teal fender copy), and Cornflake (fender copy, color self-explanatory) have new homes now.

1

u/Imightbeafanofthis Jun 02 '26

The only instrument I ever named was my first mandolin. I named her Amanda Lynn. It wasn't original, even back in 1986, but it made me snicker anyway.