A Request From Athena

Posted on August 9, 2005    Posted by      78 Comments

Athena says:

“Hello people! Can you think of a name for my stuffy bear? Because I can’t think of a name, or neither can my daddy, named John Scalzi, the one who writes the books. Goodbye people! Hope you have a good time thinking of a name! That’s all I want to say.”

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78 Comments on “A Request From Athena”

  4. Well, I just like Greek mythology & with Athena:

    Orthus.

    Two-headed hound offspring of Typhon & Echidna. Watch-dog of the cattle of Geryon. The Sphinx is the offspring of Orthus and Echidna. It was killed by Heracles 1.

    Two heads, though hound & not bear.

  5. Callisto was changed into a bear (no need to go into more detail on that story, mebbe). It’s also a nice name.

  10. I’d go with “Greensleeves” because some day you’ll run into the song, and be overcome with a nostalgia for your great big stuffed bear, and spark a lifelong interest in symphonic music.

    The world needs more symphonic music.

  11. Given it’s country of origin, Imy vote goes to “Scot.” (or, if Athena shows any trekkie tendancies, “Scotty.”)

    Of course, “Glaswegian” ain’t a bad name for a bear either…

  16. The poor child, driven to seeking advice from strangers on the Internet.

    What a strange bear. I keep wanting to refer to it as Monera, for some reason.

  17. Bruce. Or maybe Herman. Looks like more of a Bruce than a Herman, now that I look at it again.

    Unless it’s a she, of course. I can’t think of any female-type names.

  22. I second the Scarebear nomination.
    However, even the blandest of stuffed toys scare the living daylights out of me, so….

  24. Some thoughtful person gave our baby daughter a teddy bear once. He had only a single head but made a sort of Darth Vader breathing noise when you turned a knob on his back. This was supposed to lull our daughter to sleep, who would think that she was still inside the womb.

    We called him Alien Death Bear.

    At first, the name was funny, mocking the saccharine nature of such Products. But as time wore on, as I watched this thing, standing next to my daughter, whispering vaguely menacing nothings into her ear, I began to doubt.

    One night I spoke to my daughter, as a joke to my wife who stood nearby, saying, “From now on, we are going to call Alien Death Bear something else. We will call him Happy Fun Bear. Because we must not let him suspect that we know his true nature. Because if he suspects us, if he thinks his disguise has been compromised, he will kill all of us in our sleep.”

    And in that moment, our old lives vanished. We both laughed nervously and went through our daily rituals as if nothing had changed. Yet we knew that I had unwittingly spoken a terrible truth, and we would now survive only so long as our fear constrained us from awaking the horrific monster that lived in our home: Alien Death Bear.

    So I suggest that you not call him that.

  25. Sorry about the extra line breaks. Don’t post here very often, and I always miss the warning that you have so thoughtfully included above the comment section.

  26. The big green slash on the bear’s face reminds me of a glorious moustache…

    …which makes me think of Roger C.Carmel…

    …which of course leads to the suggestion…

    …Hairy Mudd

  28. While Athena may well end up calling it “Mr Funny Two-Heads” or whatever, I’m saving “Alien Death Bear” for future use. Because that was just too damn funny not to steal.

  29. ummm “Stuffy Bear” works for me. The best name is often the first name. My son had “Ginger Bear” for exaple, a ginger bread bear. And Cozy, the name from Cozy, a Fisher Price product.

  33. When Zaphod Beeblebrox visited Earth, he used the name Phil. So I suggest Phil.

  35. Oh, huh. Now I see the photo in the previous post. I completely missed the two-headed nature of this lovely bear and thought it was just a rather unfortunate specimen. Thought the green bits were a moustache, when they were actually two cuddly-green noses. Sorry about that. I suggest naming the bear Fluffy, or some charming variant spelling of that name.

  37. Considering that abominable spelling you came up with for the Fluffy mammal (whose species I cannot recall — feline?), I recommend Tzchkauhtllahnnd.

    But really I’m here to mention that Athena has the star power to pull more comments than all your July guestbloggers combined.

  39. Angus.

    Or Braveheart (“Mel” doesn’t quite cut it).

    Or Rob &/or Roy.

    Personally, I like “Slappy.”

  41. Janus (two faced god).

    But in the tradition of attached twins, you should probably name each head.

  43. I suppose Freak of Nature is too long?

    Maybe just FoN.

    Or Fonzie.

    Or perhaps FuD? As in: FU Darwin.

  44. Zaphod is so much the obvious choice but since someone (or more) has already entered that one in, here’s a couple alternates:

    Split
    The Gorga-monster or simply Gorga-monster
    Mutagen Ken
    IngPing (EngChang or ChangEng didn’t work as well)
    The Thing from Planet Six
    Elwood

  46. This isn’t in my regular daily lexicon, but the second thing I thought of (after Zaphod, natch) was Tupac. Or you could take the Batman route and go with Two-Face or Harvey.

  47. If you enclose your paragraphs in <p>|&lt/p> tag pairs, the breaks will show up in the preview all fine and dandy-like… and the font will even be the right size!

    I vote for ‘Indecision’ – fits the bear and the naming process both.

  51. Two heads, two names: Jake n’ Elwood. Because they were the Blues Brothers, that would make such a pair of names Hiply Ironic.

    I love me some Hip Irony.

  56. Baseball fan? Doubleheader.

    Conjoined twin movie fan? Bobwalt (or maybe just Farrelly)

    Or going back to the old ’72 horror movie, call him/them Rayandrosie

    An even more obscure movie reference: Hfuhruhurr

    There is already a PBSKids show with a two headed dragon, named “Zak and Wheezie” (their spelling I swear), so how about Zakzie…

    Of course, if you want to use the bear to help teach Civics, call him Bicameral.

    forget it, stick to Zaphod.

  57. no wait… anybody suggest Yinyang yet?

    (no, not Yinyangyet. Just Yinyang.)

    Or maybe Swingvoter.

    Among others’ suggestions, I also like Thabto (Good acronym! Great domain name for a two-person blog! If
    I were capable of a productive partnership with anybody, I’d use it!)

  63. Gemini is the only way to go. Think about it. In astrology Gemini is the twins. If you happen to be born between May 21 and June 20, this is your sign. The two Twins standing side by side. Their names were Castor and Pollux, the sons of Leda and the Swan (Zeus in disguise). The two twins were totally different.

    In space exploration, Gemini it is a whole lot of things.

  66. Athena- how about “Gimot” -French for twins?
    Or, “Jim’n’I” -a really obscure reference to another set of twins, and a word play on Gemini?

  68. I liked Q’s “Freak of Nature” but it’s probably too long.
    How about “Freaky”?

  72. In college, I had the acquaintance of a bear whose name was Aloysius Cuthbert Bear.

    PS. Got my copy of Agent to the Stars at my parents’ house when I went to Utah for my ten year. Yay!

  74. It looks a lot like a Hortense to me.

    If Athena is a Harry Potter fan, perhaps “Fluffy”

    If she’s a baseball fan with a goofy sense of humor, perhaps “Six-four-three”.

  78. I would definitely go for giving each head a seperate name and would, therefore, suggest:
    Cy & Mia (for Siamese) or
    Gem & Nia (for Gemini)
    But if you prefer a single name then there’s always:
    Toofer (as in Two For) or
    Cyber Bearus (as in Cerberus) (OK-so minus one head but it seems to fit)
    * spelling optional on all names given above

WHATEVER


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John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
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