Above: Images of the sidekicks after which I have named my computers and smartphones: R2-D2, Sancho Panza, Radar O'Reilly, Robin the Boy Wonder, Samantha Stewart, Tonto, and Max Klinger. (Click on the thumbnail photos in the row on top to switch images.)
When I was a kid, it was common for families to name their automobiles. This was just as, I suppose, families named their horses up until the 19th and 20th centuries. Which made sense, since horses were animals and they were alive.
But now I feel that my computers are somehow alive, too. At least they're pretty smart, they do my bidding, they look out for me (if I teach them how), and they do seem possessed of certain personalities.
So I name my computers. Many years ago, when I obtained my first laptop, a used Dell Inspiron, I named it "R2-D2," after the character in Star Wars. I thought of R2-D2 as my wing, just as he flew in a round hole on the wing of Luke Skywalker's X-Fighter.
Thus began my personal tradition of naming computers after sidekicks from stage and screen.
Both of my Dell Inspirons were named "R2-D2." My first MacBook laptop was named "Sancho Panza," the sidekick to Don Quixote, the Man of LaMancha. My first iPhone was named "Radar O'Reilly," after the sidekick corporal and company clerk to the commander of the MASH 4077th mobile Army surgical hospital in the movie and TV series "M*A*S*H." (Radar's real name was "Walter.") The second iPhone was named "Robin," after the Boy Wonder sidekick to Batman.
My next MacBook received a name from a British detective series, "Foyle's War." In a first, my computer was named for a female sidekick, Samantha Stewart, who drives and breaks cases for the show's namesake character, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of Hastings, England. So the laptop is graced with Ms. Stewart's more familiar name, "Sam Stewart."
My Mac Mini at the office is named "Tonto," after the sidekick to the Lone Ranger.
So my current Apple family consists of the Mac Mini named "Tonto," the MacBook named "Sam Stewart," and the iPhone named "Max Klinger."
They make for good sidekicks. But what does it say about me that these names cast me in the roles simultaneously of "Lone Ranger," "Christopher Foyle," and "Sherman T. Potter." With former sidekicks that cast me in the roles of "Luke Skywalker," "Don Quixote," "Batman." and, again, "Sherman T. Potter?"
So, Who Am I? Below: Images of the main characters after whose sidekicks I have named my computers and smartphones. If their sidekicks are the inspirations for my personal technology sidekicks, it follows I see myself as a mix of the Lone Ranger, Christopher Foyle, Sherman T. Potter (twice over, no less), Luke Skywalker, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and Batman. (Click on the thumbnail photos in the rows on top to switch images.)
