Name Game

Improv team names are both important and unimportant. Having done improv for a few years in what I think can rightly be regarded as one of the hotbeds thereof in this world, I like to think I know something about what makes a good name. I've been thinking about it lately because one of my teams has been working on a new name to account for the fact that we are a very differently constituted team from the one that picked the name we'd been going with: "Mrs. Belvedere".

That's an important thing, that the name mean something for the people it represents. It should make you happy to say it in a show or to people in conversation. I had only ever been OK with the name, myself. When our composition changed, it no longer adequately spoke for the team any more than it ever had for me, and the motivation increased to do something about it. For that reason we had a little get together to pick a new name.

Our hope was that something spontaneous would come up. As important as a name is, it's not remotely as important as being good at improv as a team, so the selection of a name should not take an inordinate amount of time or effort. The name can't save you when you're up there exposed. That's why I don't go for jokey names either. It should be a nice, concise name that is easy and fun to say. On its own, a good name could well sound boring.

The best teams in the world have names like Quartet and Dr. God. As far as emulating that style, our old name wasn't bad. It just, like I said, wasn't us anymore. We spent an evening mostly having fun with games, music and tv shows, and periodically jotting down things as they came to us. By the time we were near ready to break it up, we had a list of strong possibilities. After eliminating the ones that no one felt strongly about or that were obscene, we were left with two diverging options: "Neatness Counts" and "Sloppy Party".

Each of those was drawn from the first episode of "The Super Mario Bros Super Show". After some discussion, we tentatively settled on "Sloppy Party". We're not married to it just yet, but let's just say we're engaged. When we have our first practice of the year, we will probably seal the deal. I have some champagne for which I have not managed to find an occasion, so whenever we decide for sure, we'll celebrate appropriately.