Emoh Ruo was a name plate I saw regularly as a child. Being slow at the reading I thought it might be a foreign language. By the time It dawned on me that it was Our Home backwards, I was to big to to admit it to anyone. Mind you I though it was still a stupid name for a house.
This came to mind while chatting to Will the other day. Our conversation travelled through a myriad of topics and how we came to house names I have no idea. We wondered if a name had any effect on the atmosphere within or attitude of the residents. Will ‘Wotton Hatch’ be less prickly than ‘Holly House’, or ‘Sunflower Cottage’ be more soothing than Mere View’?
Does your house have a name and did you pick it? If yes, do you use it? Is it of the ‘Salerne’ variety – a mixture of Sally & Ernie?
Now for a little game:
Name this house.
1.
This is how the Estate Agent might see my house.
2.
How a buyer sees my house.
3.
How the Tax Man sees my house.
4.
Ok, I know the name of this one, but do you?
Grannymar 
I think it definitely affects you. I’ve often wondered what I’d call the hosue I’d build for myself, up in the hills. Here we’re number three, and it would seem a bit pretentious to adopt a name.
Sallerne would definitely not be for me! Especially as we’d end up living in ‘No’, I think. And all the Dun Roamin stuff, no.
There are a couple housesnear me called Rinendell, which makes me snigger, though I definitely see the attraction!
I really don’t know. I think you have to wait or the place and see what comes. Something to do with the animals in the area maybe.
My house has a name since before i came here. I did use it years ago but since the post codes were introduced I have no need of it. A house number and the post code followed by UK, will and has reached me from anywhere on the globe.
Ours is “Old Trafford” or so says the wooden plaque above BabyBro’s front door! No prizes for which team he supports! My in-laws house is ‘Glenray’ and (their son’s names) I thought it was rather tacky for a triple fronted brick veneer home!
I don’t know why people pick really corny names like Sea View or Riverbank Cottage. They might as well not bother. Ours is just number 11 and that’s good enough for us.
Baino ~ Would that be GAA? 😆
Nick ~ you are my next door neighbour! I live at NO. 10!
I put a name on my house …. an Irish version of ‘Refuge’!
I like that. I’d choose something along those lines too.
If I had to name mine, it would be “Frog Hollow”. We called it that when we first moved here because there were sooooo many frogs out at night around our pool. Over the past 10-12 years, most of the frogs have disappeared, to my sorrow.
I love the idea of giving a name to our house. Never did that, never even thought about it. I’ll get back to you..after I discuss this with my better half….what a great idea..
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://www.grammology.com
Grannymar,
Northern Ireland (I think) is peculiar in having allocated a number to every single house, even to those in isolated rural areas. The numbers have a logic about them, ie they ascend or descend, according to the direction you drive, but we were on a country road where our number was 126, the next towards Downpatrick was 120 and the next 106! The idea was to allow for building in between. I knew of one road with two houses, 9 and 19.
In rural parts here there are often not even house names – a friend in Co Galway just has a townland name.
We have no postcodes – it’s wonderful, it reduces the scope for junk mail.
Talking of numbers, it’s funny how some roads still leave out number 13 for superstitious reasons. They either go straight from 11 to 15 or there’s an 11A. What nonsense. Have you ever seen a number 13 burn down or have a truck drive into it? No, I thought not.
Sorry folks for neglecting you I am trying to get back into my routine.
Nick ~ Where I live the houses are numbered consecutively and we have a ’13’. The folk seem very happy.
Ian ~ I like the postcodes. I wrote to a brother when he moved to Sligo years ago. I used his name, what I thought was the townland and Sligo. Turns out it was the name of his house and although it took a month, the letter reached him! Well done An Post!
Dorothy ~ I look forward to hearing your new house name.
Judy ~ “Frog Hollow” is unusual to my ear 😉
Paddy ~ I hope your home is your refuge.
I know what I’m calling my house if I’m forced to name it…
“No. 74”
For the record, I don’t live at number 74, but it does mean I get to meet more of my neighbours.
Will 😆
Will, nice one. I’m now numbers 1 through 15 btw. Or maybe not. There are one or two neighbours I would prefer to keep at a distance….
My house is, “The Thistle and Shamrock mountain resort, dance hall, gun club, beer garden and ball field”.
🙂
Nick ~ now you will get the junk mail for all the houses 👿
Brian ~ is the house shaped like a thistle or a shamrock?
We inheritted Hazledene and next door is Ivydene!
We don’t use the name..come to think when we looked at the house it had a wooden plaque which said NorWanda….as someone said “Norwanda you got rid of it!”
Friends of ours (and I actually do mean friends) are so pretentious that they bought a house called Gatcombe House because it sounded like one of the Windsor family homes! They now live by a lake in Alberta and call their house “Secret Water”….all their pets are called after characters from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit…. I do some times think that calling a house “Go Away” or “Think Twice before Knocking”
might be interesting….perhaps I could use a variety of names according to my mood?
Seen on a toilet door in a house of my ken…Gatcombe actually… The Euphamism and in VERY small letters underneath , Choose your own…..
Must stop rambling…Grannymar you are very good at stimulating my peculiar brain.
Magpie ~ “Think Twice before Knocking” might put my postman off!
Sharp! 😉
Since all we have here are rigorously numbered houses, I’ve always thought that houses with names in books sounded rather grand. I’ve tried to think what I’d call our house, though I know my husband would be embarrassed if I actually put up a sign. I get too hung up on wanting something nice, not humorous, but not obviously wrong for where we live, such as “Sea Breeze” here in midwestern suburban prairie. If we went historical, maybe some name from the part of Germany where the town’s founders came from, like Westerwald. Ugh. It’s better to just read about them in novels, I guess.
Here’s one for Magpie: the sign on our bathroom door is a French no parking sign which reads “no parking; cars coming out”
Stwidgie
How about ‘Marlomeda’ it is means the end of the Rainbow.