A few weeks ago I decided that I should try and track the sources of the spam I receive. My current GMail account hosts four active e-mail addresses, so there is a fair share of spam (which Google almost always finds). So I was reading the spam emails more careful and realized something: spam is a wonderful source for inspiration! Yes, you can go ahead and read that statement again. Spam is fascinating me, and let me guide you through it’s wonders in a series of posts.
We can begin with the easy part. The names of the spam senders. These are most certainly result of simple computer randomization from some name list. But hey, that makes wonderful material for my next novel or short story! Just take a look at some samples:
Tamikae Butts,
Deirdre Luna,
Rubi Jodi,
Trotter Gail,
Romeo Ellis,
Horacio Mack,
Jacinda Destiny,
Czcibor Gillum,
Vengeance,
Elvin Strong,
Lakesha Catarina,
Eymen Enouk,
Gerardo Hester,
Tiffani Natasha,
Mr Crenshaw,
Coleman Cross,
Mr Agbandu Godslove
If that is not wonderful character names, I’d eat my hat. They are unique, stand out, have deeper meanings and are even fun (my personal favourite is by now Tamikae Butts… she must be one special girl!). Take a look at your spam box and hopefully you will find the same plethora of cool names. As mentioned, you can use it for names in your writing, character names in role-playing or maybe for your own, secret alter-ego. What about the evil antagonist Mr Crenshaw, the jovial Horacio Mack, the mystical Eymen Enouk or voodo-priest Mr Agbandu Godslove? Even the more standard (?) spam names, such as
Geoff Cannon, Burt Cantrell or Kip Andrews are useful for those not-so-important characters if you have a hard time coming up with names.
Next time: Spam poetry.