What's in a name?

What's in a name?
I love names, and I often have lots and lots of suggestions for my new horses. But that doesn't mean it's always easy to name a model horse. To me a name must mean something or stand for something I like or can connect to. Often it can also be something that I connect to a special person or a special situation.

Since I'm into pedigree assignment I, at least in most cases, try to follow naming rules and traditions. IPABRA has a great site where you can find naming rules and traditions for many horse breeds. Those can be found here: http://ipabra.org/?page_id=413

Where to find a good name?

• Pedigree assignment have helped me a lot in naming model horses that have left me stumped for names. It's like naming a real horse, you can get ideas or take parts of the sire or dams names.

• I read a lot of books and through those I can find lots of good names. That goes for movies and songs as well.

• Real horses, show results and start lists can also be great inspirations.

• Words that mean something to you in some way.

• Common words in different languages can make nice names because sometimes a word sounds or looks better in another language:

          Swedish - German - English
          Stjärna - Sterne - Star

Examples from my own collection:

• Pedigree assignment:

So Much Stolen Hope (Sire: Stolen Gold and dam: RR So Little Hope)

• Books/Movies/Songs:

If I Could Dream, a direct translation on the Swedish title of the Twilight book by Stephenie Meyer.
Aragorn, after the human in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Time Well Wasted, after a Brad Paisley song.

• Real horses/results/start lists

Charisma, after a horse at a riding school.
Rembrandt, a name I found in some old show results.

• Names that means something to me

Victory, named as a reminder of a person that is very dear to me.

• Common words

Echo, the English translation of the Swedish word Eko, but I liked the spelling and pronunciation better in English.