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What makes a good geocache name?


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What makes a good geocache name?

 

2) Gives a hint of what to look for

 

 

A great name is one that's a subtle hint, a hint that you don't 100% understand until you see where the cache is hidden and then suddenly you get this big AH-HA feeling when you see the spot.

I LOVE it when the name helps the hide somehow. I also try to make my cache names memorable & fun, with maybe a rhyme, or an anagram or some other play on a well known phrase. Much better than "Acme Trail #42"

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I let each cache name itself. I find some inspiration during the process that says "this is what to name it."

 

I agree with Wrastro. Usually they name themselves. Some bad puns. Some hints. Some just silly. Elvira, by the Oak Ridge Reservoir, is based on the Oak Ridge Boys song. (Though I'm not sure that anyone has actually figured this out...) Cindy Bear is named after a bear I met whilst hiding the cache. Arneb is in a bronze statue of a hare. &c. Depends what whim hits me.

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Look at GC1MDCE and see if the name fits.

 

Looks like a great cache!

...but, it looks gray to me in all of the photos, so it doesn't quite match. I like the intent of the name though.

 

medoug.

It is defiantly green. OD green, I have regular ammo boxes the same color.

Edited by Lacomo
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Look at GC1MDCE and see if the name fits.

 

Looks like a great cache!

...but, it looks gray to me in all of the photos, so it doesn't quite match. I like the intent of the name though.

 

medoug.

It is defiantly green. OD green, I have regular ammo boxes the same color.

 

I stand corrected. Photos don't always render colors correctly.

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I like a name that really stands out as being unusual, especially when it totally fits with the location. The best example I can think of is one of the most awesome caches I ever found:

 

Secret Entrance To Satan's Lair (GC289KE)

 

I found out I was going to a trade show in the other end of the country, and made a multi-state caching expedition out of it. Browsing the Google cache map for a nearby state, that name jumped out at me. I had to check it out. I ended up renting a 4x4 Jeep and driving out into the desert to find it...what an incredible adventure! If it had been called something more generic like 'Another desert cache', I might have missed one of the most epic adventures of my life.

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I like to try and tie as many aspects of the cache as I can to a common theme so the name is just one of them.

 

My favorite is one called "Briar Patch". It's located behind a veternarian/grooming place called Briar Patch. The cache page has a short paragraph about Brer Rabbit. The hide location looks very much like the kind of spot a rabbit would use as a hutch and the container definitely follows the theme as well. It was hidden on Easter a couple of years ago.

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I actually wrote down all the names of the albums of my favorite rock band and have been using those to name my caches. The hard part is making the hide make sense with the name of the album.

I'm glad you make the effort to have the individual album names mean something. I think it adds a great touch. There was a series of caches named for various mythological gods hidden out west, but all of the hides were identical. I find that uninspiring (let's leave out the OT issue of power trails being good or bad for the game).

 

In contrast, a local cacher has a series based on superheroes and villians, and each cache is very cleverly tied into the character in question. It might be the location (The Joker is hidden outside New York's Lunatic Asylum dating from the 1860s; Wonder Woman is near a little-known Greek temple), the container (Giganta is the largest container on Manhattan; The Atom is of course a nano), and so on. It's very well done and a deserving winner of our area's 'Best Series' award a couple of years back.

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A good cache name could be any of the first four. I tend to like ones that are a play on words that describe the area or something about the cache. That is what I usually try to use when naming a cache (e.g. "It's Gneiss To Be Gneiss" is placed among the oldest known rock formation in NJ and "Amazing Grace" is in Grace Lord Park). Sometimes I'm at a loss for a name and will make up a nonsensical name (e.g. "The Clam's Paw" and "Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale") or if I'm totally devoid of ideas I'll put my iPod on shuffle and pick one of the first song titles that come up.

 

I think a good cache name can help add to the popularity of a cache. It's like naming a product.

 

Still the best cache name won't turn a mundane cache into a good one. I've made the mistake of choosing caches to hunt by their names and was usually disappointed with the results.

Edited by briansnat
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A good cache name could be any of the first four. I tend to like ones that are a play on words that describe the area or something about the cache. That is what I usually try to use when naming a cache (e.g. "It's Gneiss To Be Gneiss" is placed among the oldest known rock formation in NJ and "Amazing Grace" is in Grace Lord Park).

 

I wrote earlier that my favorite name I used on one of my caches was Briar Patch but that's only just an example of where I tied all of the aspects about the cache together with a common theme and the name was just one of those aspects.

 

My real favorite for a cache name on one of my caches is based on a punch line for a local joke. Ithaca has been on the top of the list of some magazine poll for "The most Enlightened City in America" and, of course, the local paper runs a story on it whenever it wins. Just outside the city of Ithaca boundary is a small hamlet called Varna. I placed a cache on an old RR bridge just outside the hamlet (within view of the "Varna" sign). The joke goes, "Why is Ithaca the most enlightened city in America?" and the answer is "It's near Varna". The cache is called "Near Varna".

 

 

Near Varna -> nirvana...

 

 

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How about song titles and/or lyrics. Some people will automatically relate to it. I own one called "We Who Are Not As Others". It's the title of a song from the Brazilian thrash-metal band Sepultura. We, as cachers, are a unique tribe. We who are not as others.

 

Well done, but I'd have chosen 'Beneath The Remains' and hidden it under a giant geopile ;)

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