What did you name your Mini and why that name?

Kirk McFarland

Kirk McFarland

Active Member
I name my after my Uncle Bradley, who past away from cancer at a young age, and had a great influence on me as a young man. I worked for him out of high school in his electric motor repair shop. He was into cars and always had fast once. He gave everyone a nickname, and his nickname was Quasimodo. His birthday is in April around the same day as my Mimi was made.
My cars name is Q E Moto.
 
My Mini already had a name change. A few weeks back I named her Maisie, for no particular reason other than liking it as an English name for an English car. But, last week, my daughter was cast in the lead role in Shrek the Musical as Princess Fiona (a regional production). Fiona normally wears a green dress…my Mini is BRG. When I told my daughter I was renaming the Mini to Fiona in honor of her accomplishment, she was very happy.

I photoshopped this for her:

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Mine is named "Wattson" because:
  1. I wanted a gender-neutral name, and "Wattson" sounds like a last name.
  2. ...And phonetically calls to mind Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories, giving an English tie-in.
  3. I liked the pun of incorporating "Watt", the unit of power for quantifying the rate of energy transfer.
 
Mine is Mia. I was at the zoo with my son when we were looking at the big cats last fall. He made a remark that my electric will be like having a leopard in the house. Fast and super quiet. So I went home and looked up names of leopards in zoos across the globe. Found a Mia in a German zoo and being Spanish speakers mía can also mean mine. Sounded perfect so her name stuck.
 
The task of naming my MINI Cooper SE began years ago, when I first learned the MINI E was going to become a real car that people could buy and MINI was even going to sell in my non-ZEV state. Back then, I didn't even know what MINI was going to call the car.

I decided the name had to fit on a vanity license plate and it had to indicate the car wearing that plate was an EV. The throngs of Tesla fanatics have sucked up most of the cool EV license plates, so that made my task tougher. Also, I wanted the kind of name a superhero might have because the SE is a superhero car.

Then, back in 2019, I was perusing a German website discussing the SE and I spotted the word that met all my requirements. I didn't want to replace the IGO ECO plate on my Insight so was on pins and needles for nearly a year, hoping no one would take the license plate I wanted for my SE.

When the 51-week wait for my SE was over (I ordered 6 months before deliveries began, and then the factory shut down for the pandemic), I was lucky because my coveted plate was still available, compounding my delivery joy. Coming up with a meaningful rhyme for my license plate frame was almost as tough, but much less stressful.

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Mine kind of came with a name. When it was delivered, I was given a plate with the number "KEL ####". It made me think of the character from "Keenan and Kel" (yes, I know I'm dating myself). Kel is just a slightly quirky but very nice and fun-loving guy. I figure that description fits my Mini.

insightman said:
The task of naming my MINI Cooper SE began years ago, when I first learned the MINI E was going to become a real car that people could buy and MINI was even going to sell in my non-ZEV state. Back then, I didn't even know what MINI was going to call the car.

I decided the name had to fit on a vanity license plate and it had to indicate the car wearing that plate was an EV. The throngs of Tesla fanatics have sucked up most of the cool EV license plates, so that made my task tougher. Also, I wanted the kind of name a superhero might have because the SE is a superhero car.

Then, back in 2019, I was perusing a German website discussing the SE and I spotted the word that met all my requirements. I didn't want to replace the IGO ECO plate on my Insight so was on pins and needles for nearly a year, hoping no one would take the license plate I wanted for my SE.

When the 51-week wait for my SE was over (I ordered 6 months before deliveries began, and then the factory shut down for the pandemic), I was lucky because my coveted plate was still available, compounding my delivery joy. Coming up with a meaningful rhyme for my license plate frame was almost as tough, but much less stressful.

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What a story! I love the name, and the license plate frame is even better!
 
My family debated names for awhile before it arrived, and though we named it, the name hasn’t stuck much. We still seem to call it “the Mini”.

The name is semi-officially: Indigo Electro.

Indigo comes from the dark blue color of Enigmatic Black, and can be shortened to “Indy”, which to us is like the Indiana Jones’ nickname in those movies.

Electro is … well, only what I call it, and I do so after the Meat Beat Manifesto song called, “I am Electro.”
 
bldxyz said:
My family debated names for awhile before it arrived, and though we named it, the name hasn’t stuck much. We still seem to call it “the Mini”.

The name is semi-officially: Indigo Electro.

Indigo comes from the dark blue color of Enigmatic Black, and can be shortened to “Indy”, which to us is like the Indiana Jones’ nickname in those movies.

Electro is … well, only what I call it, and I do so after the Meat Beat Manifesto song called, “I am Electro.”
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That was smart going with the "Electro" spelling so that @insightman won't come after you for copyright infringment on "Elektro"! ;)
 
GvilleGuy said:
That was smart going with the "Electro" spelling so that @insightman won't come after you for copyright infringment on "Elektro"! ;)
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I would be honored to share my license plate with SE owners in other states. A decade ago I was gratified to learn that a few fellow gen-1 Insight owners liked my IGO ECO license plate enough to get the same one. Last week, my brother finished resurrecting his little MG Midget (even smaller than our MINIs) that's been languishing in a storage locker for more than 20 years. He liked the license plate I suggested for his Midget:

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insightman said:
I would be honored to share my license plate with SE owners in other states. A decade ago I was gratified to learn that a few fellow gen-1 Insight owners liked my IGO ECO license plate enough to get the same one. Last week, my brother finished resurrecting his little MG Midget (even smaller than our MINIs) that's been languishing in a storage locker for more than 20 years. He liked the license plate I suggested for his Midget:

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I love those cars. A friend of mine had a brg one in highschool - the only car I seriously considered instead of a Mini. I just needed a bit more reliability ;)
 
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