Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino transcript

July 22, 2025 The Allusionist

lot of dinosaur names as well are just being factual about size, like ‘mega’ - and actually a lot of the names are being factual about other things, like triceratops and pentaceratops: that's descriptive. Three horns; five horns.

HANNAH McGREGOR: Five horns. We're always telling you about the number of horns. And then a lot of them are just like, “We found this in this place.”

HZ: Yeah. The albertosaurus -

HANNAH McGREGOR: Albertosaurus!

HZ: - in Alberta. And, mastodon is meant nipple tooth, or nipple teeth.

HANNAH McGREGOR: …Sorry?

HZ: You look a little perturbed,

HANNAH McGREGOR: Perturbed and delighted. Vagina dentata is a sort of recurring theme -

HZ: It's a passion of yours.

HANNAH McGREGOR: It’s a passion of mine! Ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, you know what? You're not wrong. It's a recurring theme in the book and my life. and so I'm really, I am intrigued by the idea of adding nipple teeth into the equation.

Allusionist 190 Craters - transcript

March 7, 2024 The Allusionist

ANNIE LENNOX: It really all came to light when I got the opportunity to name my first feature on Mercury - which was, side note, one of the most exciting things. To find something that is scientifically significant and then to get the chance to name it on another planet: super cool.

Allusionist 178 Uranus transcript

June 22, 2023 The Allusionist

Have you ever wondered why the planets in our solar system are all named after Roman deities, except two of them?

One of those exceptions is Earth, which means, well, earth, and it doesn’t fit the system because it wasn’t formally discovered by humans, it was where they already were, so when they started identifying planets thousands of years ago, they hadn’t yet counted Earth as one.

And the other exception is Uranus.

Allusionist 165 Fiona part 1 transcript

November 22, 2022 The Allusionist

HARRY JOSIE GILES: Fiona is a name I think now that still has a slightly romantic, slightly historical Scottish feel. I think everyone thinks it's an old Scottish name, but it's not an old Scottish name!

Allusionist 88. Name Changers - transcript

November 2, 2018 The Allusionist

I changed my name because my parents spelled it wrong.

Why did I change my name? I didn't like it!

I have legally changed my name twice now, first and last. My parents tell this cute story about choosing my name the night before I was born. But as I was growing up, it was one of the most common names for female dogs.

I found out when I was about 12 that I was actually named for an actress that my dad had had a crush on when he was a kid, so I thought that was a bit weird and I didn't really want to hang on to that.

When I was born my parents could not agree on a name for me, and on their last day in the hospital after I was born they were watching the news and there was a missing children's report on the TV with a little girl named Ashleigh, and I was named after her.

Choosing a new name allowed me to drop a lot of the old baggage with the old identity without feeling as though I were betraying it.

Allusionist 87. Name v Law - transcript

October 19, 2018 The Allusionist

JÓN GNARR: I had a daughter in 92, and she was named Camilla after her grandmother, it was Camilla with a C, spelled with a C. And so when I got the confirmation note from the National Registry, where they tell you that your child is now named something in the registry, they had spelled her name with a K. It's confirmed that the child Kamilla Jónssdóttir, blah blah blah. And I called them, because it was spelled with a C, and I just wanted to tell them it was a misunderstanding, my daughter's name is spelled with a C and she said yeah, wait, and I waited on the line and then she came back and she said no, it's no misunderstanding: C has been banned in the Icelandic alphabet.
HZ: C has been banned??
JÓN GNARR: C was banned. Yeah.

Allusionist 86. Name Therapy - transcript

October 5, 2018 The Allusionist

DUANA TAHA: People's issues with the names they choose for their children, and even their own names, are almost never resolved. People don't talk about them. It's the word that you use the most often and the soonest to describe yourself, and yet nobody's really ever talked about how it makes me feel like this.

Allusionist 83. Yes, As In - transcript

August 24, 2018 The Allusionist

TIGER WEBB: The broad thing about having unusual name is that it's a pretty effective substitute for an actual personality. I never had to develop one, because you could just do anything and people assume you’re interesting, or that there is some sort of grandiosity behind it.
HZ: Very colourful character.
TIGER WEBB: I'm really very boring and quiet. And the fact that I'm called Tiger I think does a lot to mask that. "Oh wow. Tiger, yeah, interesting fellow." I'm not though. But feel free to think that

Allusionist 37: Brand It - transcript

May 29, 2016 The Allusionist

There are a few things to consider when naming a podcast:

Is someone using the name already? That’s important: do your research; at the very least, go to the iTunes store and check.
Is the name such a common word or phrase that your show will not appear in the first thousand pages of Google results?
Is the name a riff on a pre-existing title, like That American Life, so no matter how successful your show gets, it will never completely be your own, and always a bit of a parasite on someone else's thing?
Is it a riff on ‘pod’ or ‘cast’? That was already stale when I was starting my first podcast nearly ten years ago. Resist the pod puns!