Desdemona: Chalk it up to Hell, Shakespeare, and Jimmy Buffett

Why does such a sporty little car have such a big name?

I've had my car, Desdemona, for a little over a year now (yes, I am one of those people that names their cars). She is a small and sporty with an amazing mp3/CD/iPod stereo system and a moonroof - and attitude to match it.

Naming a car takes some insight... because even if you like a name it may not fit your particular new vehicle once you have met it and discovered its "personality." The name Desdemona seemed a natural fit from day one.

For one, the name literally translate as "she-devil." When buying a car in response to an ugly breakup, Hell does bring inspiration to the naming process in the very least.

On another front, the villainess in Shakespeare's legendary Othello is named Desdemona... another "she-devil". Othello has always been one of, if not my favorite, of Mr. Shakespeare's plays.

The most important reason for naming my car Desdemona, however, doesn't have to do with a mis-behaving woman at all. It has to do with a misbehaving man- Jimmy Buffett. One of Jimmy's favorite recurring fictitious characters in both his books and his songs is Desdemona.

"Her heart is in the kitchen, but her soul is in the stars," is how he describes her in his song "Desdemona's Building A Rocket Ship." This is a woman who appreciates the comfort and love of home but yearns to explore and to experience the world... and she makes it happen. She also has the ability to laugh. She can appreciate all the crazy people that come in and out of her life (the people who were taken out of the oven a little too early by the cosmic bakers...).

My car is a combination of adventure and she-devil, English literature and American pop culture, home and far away, where I have been and where I am going.

Desdemona is an extension of me.