A few summers ago, when Merri Beth and I were on a trip to New York City we rented a car and got a GPS navigation system. We thought it would be fun to name the GPS–we wanted to yell at it when it gave us bad directions. We continued the tradition on a trip to Boston two years ago when we drove to Westford for the day.

I’ve had my VW Jetta for just over a year now and still hadn’t given my GPS an official name. I toyed around with some German names. I even did some research on names related to guides, explorers, and navigators. Nothing really jumped out. I almost crowdsourced naming my GPS over social media but that sounded like a lot of work. Then this past weekend, it happened.

We took a day trip to Topsail Island–an early Mother’s Day treat mostly because the weather on Saturday looked nicer than Sunday. On the ride to the beach, MB mentioned that she has potentially named her navigation system Helen. (South Park reference.) It got me thinking about my GPS. We toyed around with a few names, but didn’t like any of them.

Then I blurted our, Sheila! I loved it. When Sheila barks out directions, I smile and reply back with an Australian accent–”Thanks Sheila, say, did you park a tiger last night?” (Of course she doesn’t reply back.)

Now, if I could just figure out how to make Sheila, my GPS, talk in Aussie, things would be perfect. An we need to get a new name for MB’s GPS. I’m confident, that one day while we’re driving around, it will come to us.

So I’ve got to ask…do you name your GPS? Either your everyday GPS or ones that you rent. And if you didn’t before, will you in the future?

Come on Sheila, let’s go!