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H.M.S. Neural Net

One of my favorite things to do with machine learning algorithms is to get them to name things. Give a neural network (a type of machine learning algorithm) enough examples, and it will do an often decent (sometimes howlingly bad) imitation of their letter combinations and patterns, all without the slightest clue what any of it means. I’ve used neural networks to name craft beers, cats, paint colors, pubs, and even guinea pigs.

Here, I trained two neural networks, char-rnn and textgenrnn, on a set of 24,548 boat names, courtesy of Bradley Peterson and a sailor from San Francisco.

Behold the name of your next boat (or next self-aware starship?)

First, the decent/plausible ones:

Sky-Shark
Sun Princess
Windsprite
Sandy Bear
Catchwind
Flowing Wind
Windshark
Wave Bard
Sea Rainbow
Windshare
Second Sun
The Windmower
Sea Bug
Miss Salty
Bully Of The Water

And for the somewhat more eccentric sea captain:

Bear Storm
Slow Shark
Hugs
Sea Hog
First Ramen
Sun Of Bear
Little Boot
Ship The Trick
Wart Day Of The Grover
Running A Goose
Shadow Again
Ken Dream
Princess Cracking
Dusting Hare
String Shark
Jelly Gall
Fumper
Huggy Tail
Bear Goose
Midnight Rat
Pea Fury Song
Fish Of The Dog
Quiet Leg
Cookie Sea
Back Shark
Salty Lick
Wolfing Sun
Nature Charging Lover

I’m kind of fond of the ones that really do sound like someone trained an AI to write them:

Nice Boat
What Day
Saily Sea
Blue Of The Wind
Merry Biggles
The Fun
Big Ditty
Sun In The Sun
Stinker Delusions
The Salt, How Are Sons
Otto Smells
The Bug
Wolfs !
Trivial Pockets
Wands Off!
It….
Holeygum
Arch & Navel
Spocked

These are available at a discounted rate:

Stinky Day
Silent Wind
Snot Runner
The Shanky Wind
Bad Surfer
Lick
Musty Fin
Princesside
Maolly Fart
Putty Mom
Just Ship
Aquamock
Stinkbarr
Drifting Furdy
Some Dog
The Liver
Silent Rock
Spanking Winds
Sand Plow

Now, there is an entire OTHER category of ship names, and some of them are spectacular specimens. I am not, however, going to print them here. But if you are a subscriber, you can get them as bonus content.