Naming cherished kitchen knives

I have just been reading some of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories about medieval England. There seems to be some tradition in fiction of naming valuable blades; I don’t know if there is any historical validity to the tradition with names like Serpent’s Breath, Wasp Sting etc. Amongst our eclectic numbers are there any of you who name your precious knives? I would think a custom knife that the commissioner is paying more than $1,000 for might merit a special name. Pattern welded damascus knives would certainly give some inspiration.

:knight:

I know they are simple tools to be used in the kitchen and not fantasy objects to be fawned over with white gloves, but what do you think? Any clever ideas for naming your favorite tool in the kitchen?

When I showed my new Burke to my wife last week I was afraid it would soon be branded the Widow Maker :biggrin:

LOL :laugh:

Those structures like "serpent's breath" and wasp's sting" are called kennings. They're a Saxon poetic device. The idea is not to use the actual names of things but a variety of allusions that people can understand and appreciate. So the sea might be called "whale-road" or mist "sea milk". What this means is that your examples might not be the actual names of swords, but simply poetic ways of referring to them.

Or they might be the actual names of them. I have a Corsican hunting knife I call the "pig-slitter".

With the exception of the obvious ones (such as Excalibur) I'm only familiar with named Japanese swords. Of the named blades that I'm aware of they are generally either descriptive names by which others referred to the sword, such as the Monohoshi Zao (Laundry Drying Pole) wielded by Sasaki Kojirō or named by the wielder after an event the sword was involved in such as Raikiri (Lightning Cutter).

I doubt that I'd feel inclined to name a knife of my own. To me at least it only seems fitting for a famous blade.

It is quite the opposite for me. Most people that hang around my kitchen don't really know knives too well...I generally just point them to "The Beater".

sharptools said:

"The Beater"

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Semantics, but it's not really a name so much as a class.

Are we talking about referring to a blade as something like "Beater" or are we talking about names such as "The Gyuto of Aeons" or "Thor's Nakiri"?

A lot of the European sword names are actually classes rather than names of individual swords, an example of this is Ulfberht swords but there are many others.

mine was the famous dragon slayer set

EDIT already posted

I have a buddy who knocked his Miyabi off the cutting board, and because he has the worst luck possible it fell handle down into the spot where the drain on a hand sink just fell off. She remained down there for about three days until some butchers twine and Harbor Freight rare earth magnets pulled her out. From that day forth she was known as "Baby Jessica". I'll post pics if I can find them.

The Arcadian Gyuto of the Bat:

+50-100 Attack rating towards soft veg
2-5% Mana stolen per hit.

...my Horadric cube is the best thing that happened to my knife roll.

Dardeau said:

I have a buddy who knocked his Miyabi off the cutting board, and because he has the worst luck possible it fell handle down into the spot where the drain on a hand sink just fell off. She remained down there for about three days until some butchers twine and Harbor Freight rare earth magnets pulled her out. From that day forth she was known as "Baby Jessica". I'll post pics if I can find them.

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:lol2::haha4::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
Hilarious!

Ladies and gents: Baby Jessica!

'BFK', 'LFK', or 'That FK Over There'.
Keeps it simple.

Never saw another like it. Restored the set Carved a few birds passed it on.

I have a butch harner 240mm kiritsuke gyuto in CMP154 which ist known as "the emporer" in my kitchen.

Because it RULEZ!!!!!!!

Great story and name!

Though maybe there was some fortune in the knife falling that way--hopefully no damage.

Dardeau said:

I have a buddy who knocked his Miyabi off the cutting board, and because he has the worst luck possible it fell handle down into the spot where the drain on a hand sink just fell off. She remained down there for about three days until some butchers twine and Harbor Freight rare earth magnets pulled her out. From that day forth she was known as "Baby Jessica". I'll post pics if I can find them.

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There as the semi legendary Pierre Rodrigue "Power Sword" I had the fortune of owning/using for a bit...