What’s in a name?
Project name suggestions reflect range of opinions, attitudes

By Sean O'Malley
June 8, 2009

The contest that chose "Rufus Initiative" as the NextGen SIS replacement project’s name generated over 2500 entries covering the gamut from clever to crude, intelligent to unintelligible.  Slightly over 500 were disqualified for containing profanity, personal names, or random strings of letters and numbers.  That still left 2000 submissions for the committee to sift through.

350 used either “bobcat” or “cat” as part of their name.  69 used “info,” and 40 played off the color/concept “green.”  Seven people thought “SIS” was as good a name as any, while 19 used some variation on the word “Oasis.”  Whether the latter came from affection for the former snack shop or just the presence of the letters “SIS” in the word is anyone’s guess.  Quite a few wanted to keep things in the family, with suggestions like Big SIS, Lil SIS, SISter and, not to leave the boys out, the Bobcat Replacement Operation (BRO). 

Television, movies and pop culture were big, with references both obvious and obscure.  Apparently, OHIO has more fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (4 votes for “Deep Thought”) than Lost (1 vote for “dharma”).  Perhaps the Lost fans were too busy watching re-runs on Hulu to bother submitting anything.  Two people suggested the name “Colbert.”  Maybe they liked the idea of degree audit reports being “Colbert reports” under the new system.

“Geek humorist of the month” goes to the individual who submitted “Eighteen-oh-404” with second place honors going to the wag who submitted “CompOUter.”  “My PawPrintSIS” gets the nod for overall cuteness.

To the person who submitted “Does anyone read these?” – Yes.

To the person who submitted “PICK ME” – Sorry.  We didn’t.

To everyone who took the time to visit the site and submit something, whether clever, constructive or cynical – Thank you.