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What would be the best way to name a new strain?

Grobot2010

Member
After looking at the "Ridiculous Strain Names" thread, I started thinking.. what really would be the best way to name a newly bred strain? Keep names from the parent lineages, base it on the main traits that the strain exhibits, just come up with a random name, or what?

How would you like to see names come about so that they would be informative and or somehow meaningful? Or what do you like in a name?
 

Growcephus

Member
Veteran
IF it were me....

I'd use a combo of breeder name, species, year, and strain.

Breeder: Growcephus Farm
Species: (S), (I), (R), (S/I), (I/S), (S/R), (I/R) etc...
Year: 12'
strain: 1 etc...

So when mofo's are planting a Growcephus Farms S/I 12-1, they are planting a sativa heavy hybrid made in 2012, of strain #1.

You asked.

:)
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
whatever strikes you.
many names are difficult to combine into anything really.

personally i'd never call anything i make a strain...just sayin'!
 

Herbophile

Member
I just made one up but it wasn't a strain I created. The clone was gifted to me many years ago by an old school grower that has been growing it locally since the early 80's. He pretty much laughed at me when I asked him the name. haha

After years of growing it and getting sick of people asking me for the name I decided to name it "Old Faithful". The reason being is I've popped hundreds of seeds from many different modern strains and have yet to find anything to permanently replace it. This stuff is just too damn good.
 
by not naming it all(childish shit imo)... list the lineage and allow the grower to pick an appropriate(based off the individual characteristics of the pheno he/she chose) "name" to brand the marijuana under.

growers: cinderella 99
smokers: pineapple express

growers: deep chunk
smokers: purple monkey balls
 

T.Baggins

Member
breeders should adopt some sort of Code of Nomenclature... but wheres the fun in that...
well, whats in a name?
my buddy popd a random bag seed, and it was awesome, so he named it IDK (i dont know)
could of called it pig sh!t... it would still be great weed..
 

wildgrow

, The Ghost of
Veteran
I prefer when parts of the parents names are used in a mother-father order. Example: jack herer x pineapple(whatever) = jackpine. But, come to think of it, Id expect a name like that would have that pine taste. Err, maybe thats not my prefered way.?. cheers
 

Grobot2010

Member
Growcephus, I like that approach. Your naming convention would include a lot of relevant information that a grower would appreciate. I think that this type of approach be a good way on the breeding side of things, and then watch growers name their "vintages" or various harvests as well, so that you or I, as a consumer, might be more likely to get "the" Northern Lights harvest that turned out bomb with grower x versus, just hearing about NL from loads of people but then ending up with some other grower or harvest's results and, possibly, not having "apples and apples". In a way, similar to the way things run in the world of wine.

trichrider, to your statement, "many names are difficult to combine into anything really", I agree, which is kind of why I brought this up, because I looked at a particular cross that I might be interested in doing at some point in the future, but the names on both sides are so convoluted already, it seemed like I'd be better of just calling it Grobot #1 or something simple based on the single most noticeable/striking characteristic and providing the lineage so that those who are interested know where it came from.

Herbophile, I understand the frustration of having to explain over and over again... I don't know the name, it was gifted and the person I got it from didn't know where it came from. Wouldn't it be cool if one day you could do a cheap and easy DNA test to find out where it did come from? It sounds like it's been pretty special to you and a lot of other people for 30+ years now, that is kind of a neat mystery that would be cool to solve! I glad to hear that you've got something "Old Faithful" in your garden.

CARE giver, I hear ya!

whodare, that would definitely help!

KnifeWrench, I don't see it that way, I think strain identifiers are helpful, so that we know what we're getting or passing on to others. However, I agree that growers should label their products uniquely too, since, like I eluded to above, not all "Northern Lights" harvests were created equal, since there are so many grower/environmental/selection variables in every batch, I'd be disappointed to hear that someone got completely turned off with a certain strain simply because they got poorly grown product and didn't realize it.

T.Baggins, I agree with you that "breeders should adopt some sort of Code of Nomenclature" and then the fun can be had naming your vintages or particular harvests.

wildgrow, yeah this is kind of what's been happening, but sometimes it just leads to a nondescript name that I'd like to get past.

Iron_Lion, to "the real question is: what came first the strain or the name?", I'd say it depends on the circumstances/goal of the breeding project... For example, if I simply had set of genetics that I wanted to use for breeding a unique strain and didn't really have an particular attribute that I was looking for other than the "natural" outcome of the breeding of those genetics together then I'd say the strain came first, if I was going to name it based on some characteristic of the strain, but if I was going with a name based on the genetics in the breeding pool, then the name might already be in place before the actual breeding work is finished. On the other hand, if I'd come across a particular attribute that I really wanted to try and enhance through breeding then the name might already be in mind before the strain "exists" since I'm targeting an attribute and planning to name it on that attribute.

Thanks to all for stopping in and commenting.
 

Scottish Research

Senior Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
What are your objectives? Naming anything that will be commercialized is an art. Big companies spend millions trying to get the name right. It could be the best thing in the world but if the name is wrong, it don't matter.

R.Fortune
 

Grobot2010

Member
Robert Fortune, just thinking about what would be an good way to pass along something that won't have a website for people to go look up info on, so it would be nice if the name was pretty informative about what's gone into it. In the simple hybrid that I'm looking at, both parents already have pretty long names, so shortening it will erase the information about some of what's present. Example: (Blackberry x White Russian x Bubba Kush) x (Juicy Fruit x Northern Lights #5 x Skunk #1)

supermanlives, I like the sound of that!
 

supermanlives

Active member
Veteran
last time in the sierras i came up with a bunch of names. however i was really high and forgot them all. did catch a bunch of trout tho. guess this time i will record it all
 
G

guest3871

Even if it was a superior strain, i don't think there would be many buyers if it was called something like 'Dollop 'o' Bull Semen'.

So as far as a name means nothing, i think it is still part of the 'allure'.
 

ShroomDr

CartoonHead
Veteran
smoke a bunch
make up a name
create a puppet icmag account
post your name to the strain database and its actual linage
nuke puppet


Coppola has his wines, im starting raging bull, mean streets, goodfellas, and casino!
 

FRIENDinDEED

A FRIEND WITH WEED IS A . . .
Veteran
smoke at least a gram a day for ten days (3days out of a pipe/ 3days out of a bong/3days of rolling in papers of your choice), and every time you smoke it you have to keep a pen/paper handy an write down what you think about when you do smoke it/ what you notice about it primarily with regard to taste, fragrance, odor, the high itself, what it looks like as a plant and crystalline it appears to be.
 

montehierba

Member
i find this one to be a dank thread,what inspires breeders 2 name all those killer and not so killer ones???? Well it could be anything from flavor,smell,potency...or weakness.
I can see some strains are born with it's very own name and look the white widow (w.w) and blueberry(b.b) ,strawberry cough (s.c)must of not been hard to call them,one for the look,another one by the smell and last but not least the tasty one s.c.
Am sure we are doing it more and more by these ways rather then calling them by
genetic sources, remember when it was just Haze,Skunk,mexican,jamaican,colombian,thai and good old northern lights????you name it.Well WHAT HAPPENDED?idk if i should say sad or we been just playing around in the kitchen for too long with the same ingredients.
how do we know what is what now days?i have tons of respect for cats who have done their best to maintain THAT particular strain alive for decades giving us the chance to start from zero.thanx guys.
 

FoCo(No.Co)

Barned
Veteran
Even if it was a superior strain, i don't think there would be many buyers if it was called something like 'Dollop 'o' Bull Semen'.

So as far as a name means nothing, i think it is still part of the 'allure'.

Hahahah.

I bet they'd buy 'Bull Semen Kush'

Start your day with some BSK!
 
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