I grew up around racehorses. One day, my father told me the story of how his application to call one of ours "Little Lemon", after Laika the space dog, was rejected by the Board. The reason was not that the name was unavailable; and one could speculate that there was some Cold War paranoia involved.
Here's another example of space-themed racehorses:
How about that? This is from Louise A. Ackerman's 1958 discussion about variants of the word Sputnik in American English.
According to Racing Australia, a horse cannot receive the same name as another horse until 17 years after the original horse has retired. So I am here to tell you that in Australia and New Zealand, the name Sputnik will become available again in 2026. Rocket becomes available in 2028.
If your naming needs are more urgent, One Giant Leap is available in 2019, and Laika and Skylab are currently free! Perhaps Skylab isn't a great name for a horse, though. It does somewhat imply crashing and burning.
If you want to combine your racing and Star Trek passions, here is a list of racehorse names inspired by the cult classic.
And here is the cutest spacehorse ever, inspired by British astronaut Tim Peake.
 |
| Image courtesy of Attic Photographic |
References
Ackerman, Louise A. 1958 Facetious variations on 'Sputnik'. American Speech 33(2): 154-156.
No comments:
Post a Comment