Improv Blog: Significance of a Troupe's Name

Hmm.

Hmm.

I suppose it depends on a lot of things, like the image you want to project and the audience you want to draw. Good names roll off the tongue, bad names look weird in print.

Name trends I like: shockingness, wit (and with it, brevity)
Name trends I don't like: numbers, phrases you have to explain*, the word "comedy"

I'm fond of the word "hypothetical," but I hate, hate, hate the word "hype." To me, it conjures up hucksters, snake oil salesmen, empty promises. Abbreviating is a natural tendency, though. It's going to happen whether I like it or not. A thing to consider: if you want to name your child Baudelaire, you have to accept that her classmates will call her Bo.

It's a lot easier to inherit a troupe name than make one from scratch, but at some point you might not be the same troupe. Inheriting the name doesn't necessarily mean inheriting the style, the overall character, or the fan base. Is there a legacy if there's no established philosophy, and a break in the continuity, as it were?

That's enough for now.

*"Der Monkenpickel," while certainly an unusual phrase, does not require explanation, though it has a perfectly good one.