Your Plant Needs a Great Name
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3-minute read
Are you doing ALL THE THINGS for your House Plants?
Your Plant Needs a Great Name
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Naming your plant is easy!
Becoming a plant parent can be therapeutic and rewarding. One way to care for your plants is by giving them great names.
My number one rule of plant parenting is naming your plant. This is easy! I will give examples of the ways I named my plants.
After all, someone nicknamed every type of plant (example- Elephant Ears, because their leaves look like the ears of an elephant). Every plant has at least a scientific name I never can pronounce like “Chlorophytum comosum” aka Spider plant.
Most every plant has a common name, like Spider or Airplane Plant, because no one can really pronounce those pesky scientific ones. So let us just take another step and give your house plant a great name.
In this blog post I will give examples of methods I have used to name some of my plants and also lists of great names to choose from:
Something Simple
More Creative
Steal from Media
Based on Resemblance
Based on the Plant’s Name
Based on Holiday Characters
When the name just speaks to you
Something simple
Rosemary, Basil, and Sage are my herbs names. These plants of mine are simply named by what they are.
See how simple this is.
Other great simple names for your plants:
Flora
Poppy
Dahlia
Clover
Leaf
Fern
Ivy
Bud
Herb
Sprout
Jade
Succa (succulent)
Vera
Mr. or Mrs. Plant
More creative
Here is an example of a little more creative way of naming your plant. When my son visited, he got a spider plant. I told him he had to name it. The side of the planter it came in had "Bonnie" on it, so he named her Bonnie. So, when I got mine, I named him Clyde.
Other creative plant names:
Richie (money plant)
Lucky (lucky bamboo)
Pokey (cactus or slow growing plant)
Shrek and Fiona (ogre ears succulent)
Precious (baby tears plant)
Ali and Vera (aloe vera plants)
Thing One and Thing Two
Spot (my dog’s tail cactus)
Tequila (agave plant)
Steal from Media
Examples are Count Olaf, my lemon tree, from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Marcel, my banana tree is named after Ross' monkey on Friends.
I named my Tradescantia Zebrina, Prince, because he is purple.
Slim Shady my snake plant, because he is tall and slim, so I named him Slim. Snake plants are low-light plants, therefore; I started calling him Slim Shady.
Other names from media:
Sunny and Cher
Pink
Elvis Parsley
Fernie Sanders
Sir Pokes-a-Lot
Tree Diddy
Twiggy
Fronds and Foes
Green Day
Axel Rose
Based on Resemblance
Absolem is the caterpillar on Alice in Wonderland and my Baby Rita Cactus looks like him. Also, the fact that this is a desert cactus, and when you think of the desert an image of smoke from the heat comes to mind, hence a smoking caterpillar.
Look at the shadow. It is a cloud of smoke over a caterpillar... Absolem. You see it too, right?
Other plants names based on resemblance:
Prickle
Mr. Sharp
Limpy
Bunny
Spider
Snake
Umbrella
Based on the Plant's name
Examples are Monstera is a big plant or monster plant, so I named him Sully from Monsters Inc. Now I have 2 Monsteras so they are Sully and Boo.
My Starfish cactus has blooms that look just like a starfish, so I named him Patrick Star from SpongeBob.
Merlot is the name I gave my grape ivy. I was really into wine at the time I got her too. It was very fitting.
My Elephant Ears I knew I wanted to name after a famous elephant. I went with Horton. I do love Dr. Seuss.
I asked myself the question what do you name an elephant? I typed it into Google and found a site about how to name an elephant.
Google searches are a great way to find names for your plants!
Based on Holiday Characters
Examples are my Poinsettia Merry, my Cyclamens Dasher & Dancer, and my string of hearts Cupid.
Other character’s names to use:
Bunny
Jack Frost
Pumpkin
Grinch
Santa
Scrooge
Rudolph
Leprechaun
Ghoul
Father Time
Elf
Frosty
Comet
Donner
Prancer
Vixen
Blitzen
Mrs. Claus
When the name just speaks to you
Sometimes, a plant’s name just comes to me. For example, my Norfolk Pine is one of my Holiday plants, which means normally I would name it after a holiday character, however; Freddy was what I named my Norfolk Pine. Freddy just suits him!
Sometimes you just look at your plants and the names come to mind.
Other great names for your plants:
Mona
George
Meredith
Estelle
Celeste
Gloria
Johnny
Becky
Barbara the Begonia
Dolly
Zeke
Other ways to name plants
Based on colors:
Rainbow
Rosey
Red
Garnet
Ruby
Burgundy
Crimson
Orange
Peach
Coral
Yellow
Navy
Indigo
Violet
Aqua
Teal
Olive
Based on weather:
Ice
Snowy
Thunder
Lighting
Rainy
Hurricane
Tornado
Earthquake
Sunshine
Stormy
Cloudy
So, you see naming your plant is fun and easy. Now go name all your plants! Then shop for more to name.
I hope this has inspired you to name your plants! For more information and care tips for your plants, subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
