The Name Game

I've always been excited to name our farm. Even if we ended up in a house on 0.25 acres, I probably would have named it. I think it comes from growing up in California, in Pebble Beach and Monterey, where so many of the houses had names; some funny, some mysterious and some romantic. My favorite was always "Three Gables" because it reminded me of my favorite book series as a child, Anne of Green Gables.

Naming our farm has turned out to be a bigger challenge than I expected. The first challenge is that I have another person to consider, Brian, and he really isn't a fan of the cutesy names I come up with (like "Pitter Patter Farm" after the animals we will have, and the fact that the farm used to be owned by the Patterson Dairy). The other factor we have to consider, the WORST factor, is that just about every farm name under the sun has been taken by another farm. The reason that matters is because I plan to have sheep that I use for my business, and I can definitely see us producing to much produce, eggs, and honey and needing an outlet to sell it, like at the farmers market.

I have a list of over 20 names, almost all crossed out because the names exist already. I've tried to use all sorts of descriptive words that describe us, the farm, what we want, where we live, etc but we haven't come up with the winner yet.

I started by thinking about what we are and what we want to be. Dictionary.com helped us here. Are we a Ranch, "an establishment maintained for raising livestock under range conditions."? I don't think so. Are we a Farm, "a tract of land, usually with a house, barn, silo, etc., on which crops and often livestock are raised for livelihood."? Quite possibly. How about a Farmstead, "a farm together with its buildings."? Yes. I think that works. Or would Homestead fit better, "any dwelling with its land and buildings where a family makes its home."? I think that fits too. From there there are other descriptions such as plantation, estate, hobby farm, acres, etc. I think for us Farm or Farmstead would work best.

From there, there are descriptive words about the area we live in; Mission Mountains, Flathead Valley, and Big Sky. There are words to describe our land and what we have here; 2 canals (or creeks), Willow, Cottonwood, and Maple trees, owls and feathers, menagerie, meadow, windy, sunny. We could describe us; we're both B Wilson.

From there I have come up with (names that have all been taken by another farm) Twin Brooks Farm, Big Sky Meadows, Hidden Acres, Flathead Acres, Eli Acres, Featherwood Farm, Willowbrook farm, Super B Farm, BnB Farm, Peace B Farm, Breezy B Farm, Featherwind Farm, Feather Brook Farm, and a host of others. The one's that aren't taken but we aren't super excited about are Peaking Mountain Farm, Sloping Meadow Farm, Pitter Patter Farm, Feather Meadow Farm, and Feather Run Farm.

I know there's the perfect name out there. I just need to learn to be patient. Any ideas?