Do you name your sword?

My shinken is named Sazanami because her bite is abrupt like the ripple disturbing the water.

Only once has her blade ever kissed my hand (because I was saving her when she fell from a novice's hands and I could only grab the blade to prevent her drop) and now she is the extension of my hand. The extension of my biting fangs.

Good names for swords...

Never used.
Butterknife.
Sharp metal thingy.
Dust collector.
Poohbutt.
Segal, the Steven type.
Sword Norris.
Sharp Van Damme.
Mr. Sword.
Mr. Not Sword.
Rubbermaid.
FA.com Sword.
Swordshido.
Sword F.U.
Tae Sword Do.

Brian

Since all the good ones like "Glamdring" and "Exclaiber" or "Beard Cutter" were already taken.......I think I'm going to go with "taxman."

You can't can't escape the taxman.

They get you everytime you buy something

They get you with stuff you already OWN.

They get you when you die

And after your dead--they get your kids/grandkids etc.

Not all that prosaic--but really scary.

Mr Pointy (My son's practice blade)

Windshear

Disarmer

One of them is named Phil Rogers, and the other is named Steve Donaldson

My sword instructor is actually what i suppose you'd call a devout follower of Wicca. Not to make him sound like a madman, but he's also a big believer in spiritism, and believes that when you devote(or if you're going to) so much of your own time and energy to something as multi-faceted as martial art training with a weapon, you should at least pay your respects to it by not simply "naming" it, but listening for it to tell you it's name. Judge as you like, of course.

On that note, I have managed to "name" a Shinken I have never used but recieved upon my promotoion to black belt as a gift from my sensei at the time, and a woodne practice iaito. The first is Ryumo Hozukimaru(Dragon's crest Light of Void) and Cutting Wind(Forgot the Japanese name). Working on naming a Shirasaya Iaito, I suppose.

I mean it could seem like an odd and frivolous thing to do nowadays, but for myself it's a reflection of the fact that my kenjutsu work is a meditation. I am trying to get in touch with my inner self, so why not forge a bit more of a connection to that which I use to help establish that awreness, I say. Or maybe I'm just nutz.

Taxman, love it!! LOL Mr. Pointy is great too!!!

Why not take a page from the great movie Pulp Fiction and name it your "Bad Mother****er"?

I named my first iaito Raiju, after the legendary Japanese thunder beast, who is the companion of Raiden, the Shinto god of lightning.

Panzerhaust

My first ninja sword has the name Suishou Gekkou, Crystal Moonlight. An ebony grain handle, and sleek blade to go with it.

Mine came with a name. 'K.A.E.O.'

Question for those that do name their...tools. Don't you find it a bit, anthropomorphic, to name 'things'?

it could be just a 'phallacy'.

this is funny because i was thinking just the other day what to name my practice sword.

Heard one of the younger guys in my class calling his iaito by name the other day. After I explained to him that learning the Japanese sword arts was a serious endeavour and not a class for "samurai/anime/ninja wannabes", he promised to not call his sword by name in the future.

In my mind, making up names for your sword when you've just begun practicing, or worse when you aren't actually practicing, is very much akin to writing the title to your PHd thesis the first week you enter college. It's a little bit premature and a whole lot foolishly arrogant and pretentious.

Just my opinion though.

I agree. From what I've gathered from a few years of reading multiple forums. The old timers and experienced types consider it very pretentious and just plain silly when new students and non-students start calling their swords by name. More experieced students pretty much know not to do such things.

NOTE: This experience comes only from the JSA world. As far as I know it's perfectly acceptable and normal practice in other types of swordsmanship.

Yeah me too. I had to come back and edit that into the post after the fact. It's easy to forget when your on as many other JSA only forums as we are.

I have never even considered naming my sword, isn't encouraged or mentioned where I train at all. It has always been just a tool to be used.

Wooden scarab, although technically it's a peice of a debarked fir pole with electrical tape as a grip (it's smoothed nicely over the years), as opposed to a sword

I made it a decade ago ^.^ I don't use it for fighting just as a tool during excersize, That's jsut what I called it when I warped into a funky shape that at the time reminded me of an arab sword I'd seen at a shop that's long since closed down. Right around then I started drawing swords (like so many a nerd before me)

It feels better to have a name for your blade/stick, the whole "i'm an individual" rant and so on. I just use it for practice (not for sparring, I like it alot and I know it would break, now it's about 2 1/2 feet long, but It used to be four when I first cut down the tree (alot of very tall, fairly strong and oddly thin trees around here) and carved it

Individuality is not a treasured trait in the JSAs. In JSA training, you strive to become like your instructor. To mimic every detail to the finest degree you can manage. Later, much much later, in your training there is room for personal interpretation. These interpretations tend to be very subtle variations on the original theme.

A detail I didn't know when I was seven

I don't name my swords, however sometimes I name my cutting mats things like Charles etc

:P

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