So, I often see people refer to their swords as "she". However, when I was reading a passage from Tennyson about the sword Excaliber, he referred to the sword in the masculine.

I have never had a sword that I cared enough about to name (I almost did, I had a Randall Graham wakizashi that sadly I had to sell when my marriage went south). I have however had many bicycles that have had names, some masculine, some feminine. I hope now that I can again begin to collect swords, I will have inspired names for them.

My question to you folks is this: Do you often end up naming your favorite edged weapons? If you do, what are some of the examples of names you have given to your blades?

If you don't name them, do you still tend to think of them in gender terms?

Just curious :)

No, I don't do either. I might feel differently if I had something more unique than an Albion sword. Not that I dislike my Albions, I love them, it's just that there are many more almost exactly the same, so I just refer to them as the model name.

But the Gallowglass is soooo beautiful, SHE ought to have a name surely! :D

I have named my favorite edged weapon, but only because it is a very nice custom piece. It is a dagger with a short, wide, damascus steel blade. The way the light plays off the different layers and the triangular shape just made me think "Prism" when I got it, so that is how I refer to it. My lower end pieces are just rapier, viking sword, main gauche, etc. lol.

-James

p.s. I will try to post pics of the dagger soon so you can see what I mean.

Well, for the moment my new Albion Reeve is just "the Reeve", but this might change. Could have nicknamed it Keanu but I respect the sword too much for that. :lol:

I usually refer to my Albion Steward has "the great one" and sometimes to my Squire Line Viking has Olga. I refer to my bronze hilt Del Tin viking has "the Big Bertha". My other swords don't have names.

I don't have names for any of my swords right now but I can see were a sword might be thought of as " my precious " or
" The Beast ".

As for gender, being French ( Canadian French or Québecois ) almost every noun in French has a gender if not all of them and for no logical reason more than traditional spelling and grammar ! ( I could be wrong here. :eek: French grammar was never my strong suite and " grammar school " was many decades ago, maybe latin or greek roots or some logic I don't know about ??? )

O.K. to get to the point: In French sword or Épée is designated a " feminine gender word "; so I could say that all my swords are feminine when I'm thinking in French but gender neutral when I think In English.
( Speaking more than one language fluently is like having more than one brain or way of deciphering the world. ;) :lol: )

I've a waster named Hopeful, though till now I never really thought of the fact that I consider it male in gender.

What did you mean about the poetic-viking-style?

Interesting question. I was thinking about the matter of gender only a couple of days ago.

The first Scottish two-hander I forged was definitely female. I don't know why, just a feeling I got at the time. I named her Scathach, which seemed appropriate. A broadsword I did for my ex was female from the word go, and became La Contessa. Others have been male.

It might sound like pseudo-mystical twaddle, but I let the blade make itself known to me while I'm working on it. This only happens in special cases, as the bulk of what I produce comes out gender neutral, and I leave the specifics to the customer.

I don't call these things by name or use "he" or "she". I'm not opposed to it. I like colorful language when I'm speaking. I'm a bit surprised that I don't use it for this stuff. it just doesn't seem to fit, for me, personally. I use highly colorful language about other things hobbies. I'm just not sure I use it any objects, come to think of it. Hm. Interesting.

I'm new to collecting, and being a poor student all I have is a Squire Line Viking sword from Albion. I wasn't planning on giving it a name, but as soon as I picked it out of the box it was Ralph. Not fancy, a bit dull, but good-natured. I don't like names like 'flesh reaper' or 'neck biter' or other arbitrarily gruesome names like that. Not only are they overused and tacky, but these days they never do the things they're named for.

As for gender, I don't really think of my sword in those terms, but it's probably male, just because a female would have a little more grace and style. It's pretty utilitarian, but I like it.

Weapons are strange in this respect. I get a distinctly feminine vibe from some of them, and a distinctly masculine vibe from others. Most swords land in the feminine catagory, perhaps because I find them to be slender and graceful in form and function in a way that most males outside of the ballet are not. There's also the angle that a sword is intended as a lifelong companion and that, too, would place it in the feminine catagory for me. But there is no deeper psychological basis behind this that I can see. Being that a sword is one of the most quintessential and overt phallic symbols in human history, I'm not sure why I view most of them as female. I just do. The M-4 carbine, however? Definitely male. And also phallic, in its way.

As for names, I name a weapon when I either like it enough or when I do something with it that I feel is deserving of a name. So far, that limits me to a six dollar machete that I bought at an army surplus store when I was twelve. With it I slew a rattlesnake that decided it liked my backyard better than the nearby American River parkway. And since I was a twelve year old who had recently read Tolkien for the first time, I named it Serpent Bane. Shut up! I was twelve! ;) But since Tatami Slayer or Hammer of the Pool Noodles just falls flat, and every weapon I've carried in the line of duty has been checked out from and returned to an armory, that machete is the first and last weapon I ever bestowed a name upon. Perhaps when I acquire some nicer swords I'll name them, but it will be more of an honorary name, since I don't think I'll be killing anything with them. Now if zombies end up taking over the world in some kind of post-apocalyptic doomsday scenario, that may all change. :cool:

I do affectionately refer to my Mossberg shotgun as Boom Stick, after a scene in Army of Darkness, but I'm not sure that counts.

I have a sword I named "Elcrist" (Tolkienese for Star-cleaver). Not very original, but hey it was my first sword. I also named one "Boreal" or North Wind. And one named "Space Cowboy" (some people call it the sword of St Maurice).
Elcrist and Boreal are female, but Space Cowboy is male (go figure).

Being a native french speaker, I'm exactly in the situation Jean has described earlier: since most weapons have a distinctive gender in french, I have this in mind almost intuitively. So all swords are feminine, and also axes, spears, daggers, but not knifes, go figure the logic behind that :) In fact most weapons are feminine in french...

Interestingly this poses some problems when we are talking about japanese weapons, since there are no gender (as far as I understood) for those in japanese. So we have katana, wakizashi, tanto masculine, but to me naginata and yari are definitely feminine. Logically we should stick to masculine for everything, since it is the closest we have in french to neutral. I know some insist on doing so, but to me it just doesn't feel right. Did I mention logic somewhere already ;) ?

Therefore when thinking about a weapon's name, I tend to respect this scheme if it's in french, or to choose neutral if it's in a language that allows that.

But I never got around naming one of my weapons. Maybe because haven't find the right one yet... I never felt compelled to do so.

Regards

my gadjalt is named edward but just because okeshott in RMS mentions a wooden drinking cup by the same name. i thought it was funny so i took the name. i had named my first waister cerbarus on a whim, but it shatered the first time i used it. i may name the sword im working on "the Sargent" because the mediavelist at my school is aptly named proffesor Sargent.

Well I do get "vibes" from my swords that sort of tell me if their are "he's" or "she's". After wielding them for a bit I sort of get vibes on them a bit. As for names, well there are names I give them temporarily and names that are bestowed on them only after my salle's traditions are met...namely they've drawn blood (most usually mine by accident).

My first gen Albion Crecy is named "Cutter", after it cut into me when I foolishly got my hand too close pulling it from a mat I it got stuck in while cutting. :-) It fits and it's a definite "male" sword in its character. :-)

My current dress sword for when I'm walking around faire, my new A&A Durer model, is named "Swinehacken" since it fits the Gunther Swinehacken character I use at faire. The pigskin grip and scabbard cover just sort of fits for the name too also. It hasn't drawn blood from me yet though (hopefully it won't) so the name is a transitory name for now. This one is a "he" also.

My Hanwei hand-and-a-half functional sword has drawn a drop of blood once and has "she" personality. I don't carry this one much anymore and frankly it scares me in a way. I call it "bitch" and leave it at that. :-)

I have a big Del Tin bastard sword that doesn't have an edge, so no blooding from it either. That one I just call "beast" since it weighs over 4 lbs. and with its 11 inch handle and 38 inch blade is a real beast to wield.

My Lutel longsword is a real fast and graceful beauty and a joy to wield in a fight. She's bright red in her grip and sheath, and I really struggled to come up with a name for her. An ex-GF of mine suggested "Buttercup" and it has stuck. I definitely get good vibes when I call her that too. :-)

My new Tinker sword I have yet to name...nothing has come to me for a name yet and I simply can't come up with one either. It has also yet to be blooded (guess I'm more careful around swords nowadays). ;-) It's now doubt that it's a male blade though. I'm planning on sending this one off to Christian Fletcher for re-gripping and getting a scabbard made for it soon. Perhaps after that a name will come for it.

I'm planning on purchasing an Albion Earl soon. That one I have a concept for and a kind of silly name to go with it. However I'm not so sure it will be the name I'll use after I wield it for the first time. My impression is that an Albion Earl would feel like a male rather than a female sword, but I can't be sure till I see one. :-)

A side note for you all: I may name some things like my car or my swords but I definitely don't name my firearms at all. If you have to use one for defense and it becomes known to the prosecuter or an attorney suing you for the shooting then it can be used against you in court by making you seem kind of nuts to the jury. So if you call your favorite pistol "deathdealer" and all your friends and family know this, well it may come back to bite you in court later. I was given this advice from an instructor who often testifies as a professional witness to shootings. So take the advice as you will.

I sometimes refer to my Talhoffer as Hans, or my A&A Black Prince as simply The Prince. I once owned an Albion FirstGen Celtic LaTene sword that was known as The Celt.

King Edward should be arriving this month. I already have a prominant wall display prepared for His Majesty! He will be displayed alongside his son, The Prince. :cool:

Hmm. names,

I like my swords and other arms very well but as said before there are hundreds more just like them. I just use the names already given them like Norman, Templar etc. . Just not sentimental I guess.
Jeremy

Not surprisingly, I cut myself on the very first sword I ever owned. It cut a nice little gash in my left index finger that required stitches. As a result, I call that one "Fingerbane" from time to time. I also have a large dagger that I made that didn't turn out so nicely as I would have liked; I call it "Big Ugly." Other than that, I did use a name for one of my MRL swords, but it is going to be changing character soon, so I don't think a name will be appropriate. I think I will stick with naming pieces I make (which will probably just be daggers, and mabye not even many of those), as most other pieces do all ready have some kind of name.

-Grey