The Story of the Smurf Name Generator

Back in the day, I was going through a rough spot in my life. However, I had recently gone to a friend's wedding, and he had posted some weird sort of questionnaire at the reception. On it was a question which asked something like, "Who is your favorite smurf?" It also had additional questions like "Who is your favorite muppet?" For my favorite smurf, I forgot what I wrote down ("Megatron?"), but for my favorite muppet I wrote down "Britney Spears."

Several weeks afterward, we got our thank you cards for our gift as well as responses to our questionnaires, which included the following lines: "Please note: the following were not smurfs..." I also had the lone response "Please note, Britney Spears is not a muppet." (I still think she is).

Out of that, the Smurf Name Generator was born. I used my rapier-like wit to come up with some unlikely smurf names (along with my then-wife) and came up with a simple JavaScript site to create a new name generator page which seemed to be of a type that was all the rage back then. My then-wife happened to post the link on some web page and it took off. I got at least two million hits (a lot for a personal web page in 2000-2005). Then the lawyers came.

At some point, I got a Cease and Desist letter from Studio Peyo. I wasn't the only one. Robin contacted me over AIM (remember that?) to see if I got something similar. Robin later contacted The Register. The rest is history.

Why did I take my page down? I had a two-year-old son and another on the way. I didn't want the hassle.

Why is this page back? Well, I realize that the Smurf People have been releasing additional movies. The second smurf movie is coming out soon. Whereas I have tremendous respect for Neil Patrick Harris, I have no love for money-grubbing companies who shut down talented people who create parody web content. I'll refer you to James Farr and his Trains-Formers movies on YouTube.

These companies are hawking toys and television shows and movies to our children but will use litigious means to stop people from making creative content -- with no financial gain, mind you -- because these companies feel that it is a threat to them making even more money. If you are okay with that, so be it. If you aren't, they all have contact pages on their web sites, and tell them so. It's no good to stifle creativity, and if anything, these parodies help to promote their products.

So, no, I don't have a Smurf Name Generator page here anymore. It was jacked by others (claiming it as their own) long ago. If you want a real copy of what I made, check it out here via the Archive.org Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20010720113022/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mule/smurfgen.html.

While you're here, why not check out my Irish Rock/Punk Band Name Generator?

Want to contact me? I'm sure you could figure out how.