I've had several friends with male cars. One had a car named Todd, and in high school my best friend named her Taurus the memorable and bad-ass "Silent Rage."

My last Blazer was named "Lenny." My first pick up was "D'Artagnan."

I still haven't named the current vehicle. But all my cars have been male, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, in French and Italian (the other languages I speak) the word for "car" is feminine, so it would make sense to give it a female name. English-speakers have no excuse, though, as English is non-gendered.

Sebastian is a crab *shot*

That is total BS. I am from a family of car nuts, and not only have I had a male-named car (Hank, the beat-up used SUV), but my testosterone-driven car nut brother called his truck Clifford. (As in Clifford the big red...truck). Sounds like this might be a teachable moment for your boyfriend!

I think your friends' line of thinking goes back a long way. Like how it's not unusual to read or hear about ships and other sailing vessels referred to using feminine articles.

I think it comes down to old fashioned homophobia in most cases. Some guys spend a lot of time with their cars, loving their cars, taking care of their cars. Therefore, it would be, liek, so totally ghey if their cars were MEN. *rolls eyes*

BTW, my first car, Bluey (yes, I'm totally original), was referred to as "he."

One of my oldest friends is a car guy and I don't think he's ever followed this rule.

I have named the last two cars I have had, but I have never thought of them as anything other than an "it". I have at least a couple times been asked the sex of my car to which I reply, its a car, it has no seual organs.

Its funny how far people will go to see identity tied up in gender essentialism.

To me, it's depended on the car. My current car is Hester, but that's because it's a scarlet (Scion) xA and I have terrible taste in puns; my first car I named Gwydion and always referred to as "he."

What? Where do they think baby cars come from? ;)

I've had issues with myself with this, as well. My current car (a CR-V) is the first one I've had that wasn't a hand-me-down or formerly my parents' car. I named her "Sugar" because I got her when I had my first job as a pastry chef, and she's the silvery color of decorating sugar. I knew all about the history of men naming machinery women's names, and calling them "she," but I thought through it, and figured out why I was okay with doing the same, for mostly emotional reasons. I trust my car, she's sporty while also being economical and practical, she's reliable, and she's rockin'. It felt wrong somehow to give those traits to a male, as though only a male could be all those things. Which, I admit, comes with its own danger of gender essentialism, as Antinome mentioned. It sounds really weird and problematic now that I'm typing it in public, but it just made sense to me.

BTW, I'm a bi woman, so the whole homophobic thing (which I agree could be an issue for some "macho" guys who 'ride in' and 'tweak' their cars) isn't really an issue for me.

So, am I entirely insane? (And please, be honest!)

At my high school, the rule was that automatic cars were female, and stick shift cars were male. You can guess why.

However, I think there is a long tradition of naming things like ships with female names, so it makes sense that a lot of people think of their cars that way, but it doesn't mean they can't change it now.

I named my car Fenry. It's full name is Fenry Honda.

Cedar: You owe me a new keyboard! Clever and hilarious!

How strange! All my friends who named their cars named it after a guy...my car got the nickname Grandpa [it was an old car], my one friend named hers Silvestro, and the other named her car Sebastian too!

My car's name is Rudolpho.

I also love my cousin's name for her Subaru -- Hubert. Hube the Sube. She also has a male hula dancer on her dash. His name is Humphrey. My aunt got me one like hers and I called him Raul, but he didn't stick to the dash :(

All the cars my family owns are male: Iorek (my Saab, named after the polar bear in The Golden Compass, because my old car was named Bjorn and 'Byrnison' sounds a lot like 'Bjornson') Ivan the Beast (my mom's van), and my dad's two Beemers, Johann and Roland. The only rule I have with naming cars is that the name must be of the same ethnicity as the vehicle (which means American cars can have any sort of name). Right now Iorek's getting fixed after a fender bender and I'm driving a rental Kia I call 'Crazy Mei.'

My girlfriend's brother told her a bunch of Chuck Norris jokes this Christmas, so she named her truck Chuck Norris.

Ships are traditionally female. Not sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that there were (usually) no other women aboard. Also, you know, they were supposed to do what men directed them to do.

My first car was female. An '86 Olds Cutlass my friend named Shaniqua. But a friend of mine in college had a dinky blue-green hatchback, or something, named Pedro. I tend to think of my current car, Red, as male, but it doesn't have anywhere near the personality Shaniqua did, so it doesn't anthropomorphize as easily. Hence the less-than-creative name.

I had an old camry named Sammy the Cammy for the first few years of driving, but I actually never thought of it as definitely male or female. Sammy could be a boy's name or a girl's name, although I did call it a him more than her, probably.

My new car is a Lexus and lacks the character of Sammy (who lost her gas door, had broken windows, and could get 30 miles to the gallon!) so right now, she/he/it is nameless.

My 91 Volvo was named Oscar. I cried when they finally towed him away.

My friend named her car Mervin (after the Sheriff of Roddingham in Men in Tights).

The two cars I have had both had female names. The first (a Pontiac Grand Am) was Lucy, because the name popped into my head randomly when I was driving. The second (a Ford Focus I got after some asshole ran a light and murdered totaled Lucy) was Sylvia, because she was silver.

I don't drive now. Maybe I'll start naming my Metrocards. I think this week's is Steve.

huh. "murdered" was supposed to be crossed out.

I've never named my cars, but I considered my Nissan Bluebird to be female. My Scott mountain bike was male, and my new Sublime 1 road bike is female. My current car, a burgundy 3 door starlet, doesn't have a gender yet, I don't know it well enough. My new skis are male - when I first saw them I got this mad rush of arousal, then the first ride on them was amazing. Yes, I got hot for my skis. Someone out there will understand.

My car (a '95 Ford Taurus station wagon) is named Jeannine. The reason for which is that it was originally my grandmother's car, and after she passed on my grandfather decided to give it to us. I just thought it would be a nice way to remember my grandma.

Jeannine has other names too. "The Green Hornet" is the name most commonly used in our house.