So, I got into this phase, right? Needed a name for a little virtual island I was messing around with in a game. Didn’t want anything serious, wanted something that’d make me chuckle every time I saw it. You know how it is.
First thing, naturally, I just started typing stuff like ‘funny island names’ online. Got tons of lists. Problem was, most of them felt… well, kinda forced? Or just plain silly, not really funny. A lot of the same puns over and over again. Stuff you’ve seen a million times.
It got boring quick.
Like, everyone suggests ‘Pen Island’ or something similar. Yeah, okay, first time maybe, but it’s old hat now.
Got a bit frustrated. Decided just browsing lists wasn’t working for me. Needed to get the brain working differently. So, I grabbed a notebook, the old paper kind. Remember those? Started just writing down random words associated with islands. Sand. Coconuts. Crabs. Lost. Then tried mixing them with funny concepts or just weird words.
My Little Brainstorming Mess
It wasn’t pretty. My process looked something like this:
- Word Association: Island -> Isolation -> Alcatraz (Maybe too dark?) -> Lost Sock Isle? Kinda dumb, but wrote it down.
- Puns (even though I disliked the online ones, tried my own): Isle Be Back, Isle of View, Notta Lotta Key. Some were groaners, gotta admit. Threw most of these out later.
- Combining Random Stuff: Like ‘Mount Clutter’ or ‘Cape Fear-of-Spiders’. Okay, maybe getting somewhere. Just jamming words together.
- Thinking about things on an island: ‘Seagull Snack Bar’, ‘Where’s My Ship Shoal’, ‘Mosquito Bite Marina’. These felt a bit more original sometimes.
Basically, I just let the dumb ideas flow. Didn’t judge them at first. Just wrote ’em down. You gotta get the bad ones out to find the okay ones, I reckon. Filled a page or two with nonsense, mostly.
Then I went back through. Crossed out the really terrible ones. Circled a few that made me snort air out my nose. Read them out loud – sometimes that helps figure out if it actually sounds funny or just looks weird on paper. That’s a key step, trust me. Some jokes just don’t land when you say them.
Didn’t find one single perfect name, you know? But I ended up with a short list I liked much better than anything I found online. Stuff like ‘Isle O’Puns (ironically)’, ‘Barefoot Peninsula’, ‘Fort Fart’. Yeah, I know, classy. But hey, it was for my amusement.
The point wasn’t just finding the name, it was the whole little project of digging for it myself. More satisfying that way.
Felt like I actually created something, even if it was just a silly name for a bunch of pixels.
