Goofy, silly, fun old pop song by Shirley Ellis, who was from the Bronx. You take someone's name and follow the pattern:

Shirley Shirley
Bo Birley
Banana banna fo firley
Fee fye mo mirley
Shirley

or something like that. Great for bus rides and other moments when no other response is possible.

Perl can play the Name Game, too.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

my $name = lc( $ARGV[0] || 'Shirley' );
my ($irly_name) = $name =~ m/^[^aeiouy]*(.*)/;
my $underline = "-" x length($name);

print <<__NAME_GAME__;
\U$name!\E
$underline-
\u$name, \u$name,
Bo B$irly_name,
Banana fana fof$irly_name,
Mi my mom$irly_name,
\u$name!

__NAME_GAME__

A drinking game.

Four or more people assure they have an adequate supply of alcoholic beverages for each person. Then sitting in a circle, the first player says the first and last name of a famous person. The direction of play is determined by the first person to the left or right of the first player to say a famous persons name beginning with the last letter of player one's name. Continuing, player three says a name beginning with the last letter of player two's name and so on. If any player says a name that begins with the same two letters, the direction is reversed and the previous player must come up with another name following the rules. If a player can not come up with a name, they must drink until they can. Any player which provides a name when it is not their turn must also drink.

Names must be of famous people, including athletes, politicians, cartoon characters (good for double letters) or generally known figures in society. Titles, such as prince, queen, sir, etc are not valid substitutes for first names.

Example:

Player 1 - John
Player 2 - Jane
Player 3 - Jake
Player 4 - Jack

John says Bart Simpson
Jane says Stephanie McMahon
Jake thinks for 3 seconds then has to drink. Finally Jake says Mickey Mantle
It reverses and becomes Jane's turn again.
Jane says Michael J. Fox
It is Johns turn again.

The best catch phrase during play is "Drink while you think!" and "DRINK!"
Game play can get quite noisy and heated debates can arise over the validity of names.. exercise caution as with any drinking games.
Catchword, a company offering naming and branding services says "Names are the Ultimate Soundbite".

One of their clients is Roxane Labs (a pharmaceutical manufacturer). Roxane developed Roxanol TM which is a concentrated morphine solution for the immediate relief of severe pain. It is frequently used in hospice care for dying patients. One big advantage of Roxanol is that it can be administered sublingually (under the tongue) and doesn't require the patient to swallow.

Here is how Catchword describes the feelings evoked by the word Roxanol; "the name subtly suggests pain control and oral administration, while leveraging the equity of the Roxane name. In terms of tonality, the strong 'rox-' prefix communicates efficacy and strength, while the softer '-nol' suffix speaks to a more nurturing, calming therapy".

Another name developed by Catchword is "Petopia". You know, the internet pet utopia....except Petopia.com now leads you to Petco.com so maybe the name wasn't quite enough.

"Ten", is a new "botanically infused" gin developed by the importer and distributor of Tanqueray in the United States. Catchword says "TEN works on many levels. The name communicates the positive associations of the number, and is an apt alliterative complement to such qualifiers as 'Tanqueray' and 'Tonic'.

Cintara, another branding company says "the biggest thing people must realize is that naming is a process".

They came up with ``Acterra: Action for a Sustainable Earth.'' This is the new name of 2 merged environmental groups.

We also have the XTERRA by Nissan and Windows XP. Experience points? Generation X?

Name Development, Inc. says a good name is "built on brand strategy, linguistically based and target market tested". Neologisms make up almost 3/4 of the US trademark applications each year. A lot of thought and money goes into theses name games.
A game played at various types of conferences, such as leadership development conferences, where the goal is to learn the names of each of the participants by their association with various actions.

Typically, the group sits in a circle and one person is picked to start. That person says their name, and then does some action that represents them. This is where the Name Game acquires its many variations. There are any number of things that can be done to associate the name with the person. One example is to have the individual make a motion representing their favorite pass time.

Each successive person in the circle is required to go back and tell the names and do the actions of each person that has already gone. For example...

(just pretend that they're doing actions)

John: My name is john, and I like to swim.
Mary: His name is John, and he likes to swim. My name is Mary and I like to work in my garden.
Scott: His name is John and he likes to swim. Her name is Mary and she likes to work in her garden. My name is Scott, and I like to sleep around.

Typically this sort of thing is either loved or hated. I suppose it could be turned into a drinking game at a sufficiently large party as well. It would be a boring drinking game if everyone knew everyone unless the actions were creative enough (or if the participats were drunk enough).
This variation was published in Omni back in the '80's. It is an ideal way to pass the time on long road trips. The rules are simple, but the game itself can be played, quite literally, for years.

  • The first player proposes the name of a real or fictional person. (It must be a person. This doesn't mean they have to be human.)
  • The second person posits a second name, related to the first by either sharing a word in common (Tiger Woods to Woody Harrelson), the same profession (Neils Bohr to Werner Heisenberg), or a pun (General Tso to Ron Jeremy1)
  • Keep going round. No repetition of names is allowed.
  • If the connection seems too tenuous, the other players can challenge. If you're bluffing, you pay a penalty to be determined by the other players. It's up to you if you define the penalty ahead of time or just make it up if you go along. If you are not bluffing, the challenger pays the (frequently "obscenely biological") penalty.
The game never really ends. It just stops temporarily when you get to your destination. This game has kept /me and Noteponymous sane over a total of 9000+ miles of roadtrippin' in the last decade. Well, as sane as we get, which isn't very. The beauty of the game is trying to find connections so slim, so groanalicious, that the other players can't find the connection.
1 -- You're not really going to challenge that one, are you?If you can't figure it out, /msg me.

The name game is a form of entertainment that is growing in popularity. It started as another of my brother’s idiot ideas.

It is to be played with a group of people.

The game is the most fun in a large, open and public area, such as a mall. Otherwise, all the little game pieces may figure it out.

The pieces are either followed or selected at random.

The players then take turns shouting random names. Points are awarded at getting the right name. This is assumed when a game piece turns around. One point per person. As a rule the players ignore the person when they turn around. However, fun, friendly, and slightly obnoxious people such as my brother give a smile and a “hi.”

If the validity of the name is out into question the name is to be repeated. If the person does not turn around again, the point is forfeited. If one is feeling particularly bold, they may ask the person for their name. This is why saying hi is not always advisable.

The game ends either when boredom throws its bulk around or when the players all go home.

Calling out the name of a person already known to that player is strictly forbidden and will result in the deduction of a point.

Bonus points may be given for a unique or unusual name. Judges are the other players unless allocated otherwise.

Have fun and remember, following the same group around may result in police inquiries.

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