Convention Naming :: The Life of the Traegorn :: December 9, 2009 at 8:30:43

Convention Naming
Posted Dec 9, 2009 - 8:30:43	Tweet

One of the most difficult things that I had to deal with when launching UnCONventional was naming the fictional convention. "Bork Con," what I settled on, was no grand reference. It wasn't some inside joke, and it wasn't part of any sort of plan. In the end, it was the result of my giving up. I threw my hands up in the air and said "Screw it, I'll just call it Bork Con!"

This is how things work.

Naming a convention isn't like naming a band. You can't just take any random one to three words and maybe toss a number on the end. You can't just come up with "Lycanthropy Now!" or "Half Digested Turtle" and be done with it. It needs to somehow sound clever, and relevant.

Clearly I failed with that, but Bork Con will have to do.

The problem with creating a fictionalized version of the con scene is that I don't just need to name one convention though, I need to invent the name for every other convention the characters go to. In a strip that will go online in a few weeks, the character Max will reference a convention called "OmegaCon." What I forgot while writing it was that there is an OmegaCon - in Siren, WI - and it's not an Anime con. It's a Sci Fi con for adults only, and not really the kind I had in mind writing the strip. For the record then, the OmegaCon in the strip is NOT the actual OmegaCon. (Edit: I have now updated said strip so it will refer to "Go-Mega-Con" instead... yikes that's terrible.)

People have this problem naming REAL conventions all the time. That's why there are multiple MarsCons and OddCons. Getting a name as good as No Brand Con in real life was a fluke - it was easy to remember and no one had taken it yet.

Next month the characters will go run a room party at another convention though, and I ended up calling it "ShiitakeCon." Why? Because I like shiitake mushrooms. I think at this point I'm just going to start recycling different Japanese words for food when naming future fake conventions.

I see SashimiCon eventually happening, and UnagiCon has a good ring to it.

It seems like a decent plan to me at least.
- Traegorn