User blog:Toon Ganondorf/The Best and Worst of Robot Wars Names

During a 6 hour Skype conversation with Toast and Nweston, the topic of good and bad robot names came up. Robot names, so much like the robots themselves, can be extraordinarily varying in terms of quality. Some inspire fear and passion, others wilt under the weight of their uninspired letters.

During this Skype conversation, Toast, Nweston and I formulated three "Cardinal Sins" of naming a robot. As we combed through Robot Wars UK Championships looking for the best and worst names, we tended to use these rules to instantly decide the worst names.

Cardinal Sins 1. Repeat Names This one is pretty self-explanatory; using a name that is already taken, no matter how obscure, shows a lack of originality in your part. The show also took an inconsistent approach to letting repeat names in, which only added to the frustration.

2. Letter number names No matter how clever you explain what the letters and numbers stand for, if you enter a robot that is simply a letter and a number, there's just no creativity.

3. Names that are a chore to spell, write or say Whether they have obscure spellings, unnecessary replacements for actual words, or lots of punctuation, these names are instantly unpopular.

We also noted a few lesser sins that we immediately disliked, but not nearly to the extent of the cardinals.

1. People's names People are not robots. Too often robots are given people's names and yet not given faces or personality. It just seems lazy and uninspired for a robot that is meant to kill and maim.

2. Random sequentials If this is your first time on the show and you're entering "X Robot 2" to reference an obscure middleweight predecessor no one saw, you fall out of favour by sending fans looking for information they can't find.

3. Clutter Unnecessary suffixes to names. Case and point, Interstellar MML.

Series 1

 * Heat A. Not a particularly inspiring opener, with nothing to write home about good or bad. Barry was our unanimous loser for reasons in the lesser sins, and Roadblock was out unanimous winner. The road signs and sheer mass suited the name to a T.
 * Heat B. Recyclopse won unanimously, arguably one of the best names of all time. It perfectly captures the recycled nature of the robot whilst also capturing its aesthetic, in a portmandeau that rolls off the tongue. Thought Uglybot was considered a contender for worst, the unanimous loser was Leighbot, a robot's name so lazy that it simply took the school and stuck "bot" on the end. Names like this reek of placeholder status, where everyone just kept calling it "The Leigh City Technical College Robot" just condensed more and more.
 * Heat C. This was a surprisingly close one. Toast latched on to Plunderbird early on and kept voting for it, and we all gave it points throughout. Dreadnaut, like Killertron, just suited a robot name, and Robot the Bruce very nearly took the top prize. However, WYSIWYG took the unanimous top prize for being so well suited to the robot's stock nature, simple design and for being so unexpectedly easy to say. The worst was hardest to pick. Whilst I voted for Cruella being the most uninspired, Nick and Toast both chose Wedgehog as the most obvious pun.
 * Heat D. A steep fall from Heat C, with only Cunning Plan getting any support. Krayzee Tokyo and SAT'arn both nearly took the prize for worst for being unintelligible words with no clear explanation as to what they mean, but Nick put his foot down with his objection to Bugs. The first problem was that the robot was plural for a single beetle shaped robot, and it all went downhill from there.
 * Heat E. A much stronger selection, with both Full Metal Anorak and Torque of the Devil picking up votes before the latter won out, and Psychosprout coming in third through sheer delight. The worst came down to Wharthog and REALI-T. Nick was particularly vocal about REALI-T being a cheat - the correct acronym should be "REAT" - but Toast and I decided that a bland animal name is no different to a bland human name.
 * Heat F. Finishing on a weak note, I tried to back TRACIE but was outvoted in favour of Prince of Darkness. The weakest name was a dearth of choice, between the generick Skarab, and The Blob, who won out for not even sounding like a robot.