Janelle Shane, a research scientist with a penchant for silliness, decided to train a neural network to generate new paint colors, complete with appropriate names. The results are hilariously bad, and range from the impenetrable (“Dondarf” for a lovely shade of cornflower blue) to the almost-there (“Ghasty Pink”, the color of Pepto-Bismol). Ars Technica has the details on how she did the training.

Her conclusions: “1. The neural network really likes brown, beige, and grey; 2. The neural network has really, really bad ideas for paint names.” Professional namers need not worry about losing business to AI just yet.

(She has also done a similar experiment with superhero names, and it went about as well as you would expect.)

 

In 2003, the United States tested a new weapon for possible use during the Iraq War.  That weapon was officially named the GBU-43/B Massive Ordinance Air Blast or “MOAB” for short.  Over time, that acronym underwent a curious onomastic shift in which the root full-form was replaced by a new name: “Mother of All Bombs”. According to the Business Insider journalist, Mark Abadi, this nickname was coined as a play on Saddam Hussein’s 1991 prediction that the Gulf War would be remembered in history as “the mother of all battles”.  That phrase caught on fire and soon everything was being described as “the mother of all…”.  14 years later, this name re-surfaced once again when the US dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb, or the “mother of all bombs”, in northeast Afghanistan. The Oxford Dictionaries blog has a detailed history of the phrase.

Scientists have named a spiky, tank-like dinosaur that wielded a sledge-hammer tail after the fanciful beast Zuul from the blockbuster film Ghostbusters — but it turns out this dinosaur was more of a leg-buster. Fossils of the four-legged, plant-eating dinosaur, called Zuul crurivastator, were unearthed in the US state of Montana. The dinosaur was about six metres long, weighed 2,200 kilograms and lived 75 million years ago. The species name translates to “destroyer of shins” in Latin, a name inspired by the club at the end of the dinosaur’s tail. This article at Scientific American has all the details.

The votes have been counted and the winners are final! The Dog Training Centre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta, Canada received more than 20,000 onomastic entries for the 13 adorable (and we mean REALLY adorable) German shepherd pups born at the Centre this year. According to the contest rules, the puppies’ names had to begin with the letter “k”.  The winning names are Koda, Kai, Kullu, Kage, Kammo, Kato, Kayla, Kazoo, Kate, Kaos, Kaya, Knight, and Karma. If you would like to see one of the baby photos and shots of the now pre-teen Canine cops, click here.

A community in north-western New South Wales is preparing to unveil a street named after an icon of Australian folklore. The “drop bear” is said to be a reclusive animal that shies away from roads and humans — but it is a different story at Upper Moore Creek near Tamworth where a road will be named after the mythical creature.

Tamworth Mayor Col Murray said reaction to the proposal had been positive and overwhelming. “It’s just something that’s attracted a lot of interest from people,” he said. “One of the consistent comments was that we tend to get very staid and very serious and ultraconservative about our road names and street names and things. This was thought to be a great thing to introduce a bit of light-heartedness.”

Once again, the old computer adage rings true: “Garbage in…garbage out!” Researchers have discovered that many of the technological devices we have developed over the years to make our lives easier and more efficient suffer from some of the very same prejudices and biases that their plague their human designers.  For example, according to a CNN report, an internet search for a Black identifying name might be attached to ads that imply that the subject has a criminal record. Want to learn more? You can watch the whole report at the CNN website.

The Social Security Administration officially released its 2016 baby name data, and Star Wars fans are responsible for making Kylo the fastest-growing name in the U.S. According to the data, 238 parents named their sons after the new Star Wars villain last year, although 14,569 opted for Benjamin, some of which presumably could’ve been inspired by Kylo’s real name. The runners up in that category were the equally pop-culture inspired Creed, Benicio, Adonis, Fox, and, shortly thereafter, Zayn.