Friday, May 23, 2008

Name Those Ships

Royal Caribbean decided the first two of what were formerly referred to as their Project Genesis ships will be named Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, in that order. The class of 220,000-ton vessels will henceforth be referred to as the Oasis-class.

The names were chosen as part of a contest where individuals were invited to submit names. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges which included Lauren Teton, founding partner of Name One!, which specializes in finding unique names for products and business entities; John Maxtone-Graham, maritime historian, lecturer and author of numerous books; and Albert Mehrabian, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA and author of more than 14 books, including "Baby Name Report Card: Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names." Frankly, with a panel of judges that oozed so much imagination and brainpower, we would rather have seen Royal Caribbean employ them to create the perfect names for these high-profile ships rather than completly abdicating the line's creative responsibility.

The complete article appeared in the May 23, 2008, edition of Cruise News Daily.