Stories behind smithy/forge names...

[BorisTheSpider]

Been kicking this around a lot lately. Nothing jumps out at me as "THAT'S IT!" But I do have some ideas.

 

Leaning (or Falling) Forge (or Smithy), because my shop is in an old garage that appears to be standing mostly out of habit.

 

McMash Forge, for a very long-winded reason. Ready? Here goes: My hair/skin definitely suggests I'm of Irish/Scottish descent (though, truthfully, it's more German than anything else). That's just the surface though. The name is the pronunciation of Michmash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michmash), a town on the road to ancient Jerusalem, that was the location of a battle against the Philistines, led by Saul. The name actually means "hidden treasure," which also works well with how shabby my current shop is (or as a reference to recycling old steel). Also, 1 Samuel 13 (19-22) talks about an unfortunate (albeit engineered) lack of blacksmiths in Israel, because the ruling Philistines feared the natives would create weapons and revolt. This created a dependence on the nearby Philistine forts for repairing their farm tools. That whole section sounds a warning of a tactic that has been repeated throughout history, and is indeed something to avoid, even today. Thus, by being the blacksmith "of Michmash," I am helping to preserve our freedom and independence.

 

The third option is some play on my family name, or perhaps some local allusion.

 

Again, none of them really jumps out at me. McMash is really neat-o, but I'm not sure about assuming a made-up surname. I could use the proper spelling, but "Michmash" just looks a little confusing. I suppose it could work being pronounced "Mish-mash" or the more proper "McMash." Any thoughts?

[Cdworks]

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[neg]

^^^I like that... a lot.^^^ n_n

[Frosty]

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[Jon Smith]

Dancing Anvil Forge

I work in a cramped shop with two four wheelers and a tractor that have to be moved out, so my HB is mounted on a way lighter stand than it should be so I can easily move it. Needless to say, when I get to wailing on a big piece of hot iron and ringing my anvil....well she starts to dance across the shop floor along with the beat.

[Nobody Special]

I only get to forge once or twice a week, and have only sold a few little bits and pieces, but if I keep practicing, and someday get to grow up and be a real blacksmith, I guess I'll need a name for mine. Small and Pathetic Backyard Forge probably won't attract customers. :rolleyes:

 

My wife has a small chicken hatchery, so I'm thinking about Yardbird Forge, with a rooster perched on an anvil as a touchmark/sign.

[lowhy-welder]

Hm well I always said if I started contracting my welding I would call it Noa's Arc since my first name is Noa in Spanish but now that I'm getting into blacksmithing maybe Noa's Arc and Forge. Or Brushoak Forge because I live smack dab in the middle of a huge scrub oak forest (not one of them taller than 3') so Desert Oak Forge fits too. Hmm decisions decisions.

[Drewy]

my son who was four at the time (now 22) was the inspiration for the naming of my business, as you see my shed had a metal gate for the front door, as well as the lockable yard having a 8ft high chain wire gate out the front. When ever someone asked him where dad, he would reply down at the two gates. Thus "Two Gates Forging Company" was registered. Everyone become familiar with the term meet me at the two gates.

[MrAceman]

I currently don't Own a Smithy, but I aspire to be a blacksmith. I live in the Blue mountains in Australia, in a village called Wentworth Falls. I came across this thread and thought I might take a look. Some truly awesome names out there. In Wentworth Falls, there is a waterfall, and that got me thinking. How about "The Falls Forge"? It's kinda funny to day but it sounds nice and it also has a meaning behind it. BTW here are the Falls in full force...

 

              

[KENL]

My shop name is The Wooden Anvil Shop. I do wood working , hand forge 18th century knives and make muzzle loaders. So I thought the name was kinda of a catch all name for what I do?

[KYBOY]

We live in Wolf creek Ky, So its "Wolf Creek Forge"

[K. Bryan Morgan]

The name of my forge is Naomi’s Forge.  Named after my mother, without whom this endeavor would be much more difficult.  She is no longer with us.  She wanted me to follow my heart and do what made me happy.  She encouraged me to be artistic and with her own art inspired me.  She is gone.   But her spirit of loving life and living it to the fullest, lives on in my forging, learning and trying to make beautiful things.

 

 

I made the logo on GIMP.

 

[Daniel.85]

 My last name being Campbell, a Scottish name, I took Argyll from an area of Scotland that the Campbells were from, I pronounce it Are-Guy-L. The "hammer" part comes from just wanting it to sound a little different than having "Forge" at the end of a name.

 

Argyll Hammer

[H&I Forgeworks]

H&I Forgeworks...Honor and Integrity 

[jgirard13]

My best friend is my wolf Loki, hes half grey and half artic (no dog in him). Hes always in my shop and acts like he owns the place so everybody said it wasnt my shop it was his den so the name "wolfs den forge" became my business name. Ive had him since he was a pup and started smithing around the same time so almost 6 yrs him and i have been in business

[jwilson645]

Mine is Southern Metalworx because I live in Alabama and love working with metal. I first started out doing welding and fabrication work and when it wasn't giving me the satisfaction I wanted I started incorporating more creative and artsy work. Then I fell in love with blacksmithing. While I am still very new at it I figure that the name is general enough that it works for forging also.

[LastRonin]

My best friend is my wolf Loki, hes half grey and half artic (no dog in him). Hes always in my shop and acts like he owns the place so everybody said it wasnt my shop it was his den so the name "wolfs den forge" became my business name. Ive had him since he was a pup and started smithing around the same time so almost 6 yrs him and i have been in business

Sorry to sidetrack this thread momentarily, but...
Please post a pic of him.

[jmccustomknives]

I hadn't thought of naming my forge.  My wife however refers to it as the "junkpile". :rolleyes:

[jgirard13]

How do I post pictures from an android phone?

[jgirard13]

[jgirard13]

That's my big boy with the ol lady, i think shes giving him vanilla ice cream.

[Black Frog]

I get asked about the name Black Frog, and the frog skeleton logo quite a bit.

 

I'm a musician in a band called Black Frog:  www.BlackFrogMusic.com

The name came from over 15yrs ago, from the first few years of meeting my guitar player.

 

The guitar player and I were building a recording studio to work on our music. 

The recording studio was in the basement level of his older house, and he lived on the first floor.

On his first floor he had a big aquarium, and he bought these white albino aquatic frogs to have in the tank.  Three of them.  Weird looking things- they were pale white with beady red eyes.

Sometimes these frogs would burrow down into the gravel at the bottom of the tank, and they could be hard to see.  One day we noticed we kept only seeing two frogs. 

Sure enough, when we checked closer there were only two frogs in the tank!  This was very strange, how did that one get out?  And where did it go?

 

We moved the couch away from the front of the aquarium and then we saw the dead albino frog laying there. 

Apparently he must have climbed on top of the water filter spout and was able to tilt the lid up a bit and made a jump for it.  Bad move.

 

So now we were down to two frogs.  A few days later we came up from working on the studio construction and there were NO frogs in the tank!

I guess the two remaining frogs saw how their buddy escaped and did the same…..  We moved the couch again and there was one dead albino frog laying there.

 

…..but we could NOT find the third escaped frog!  We searched everywhere.  Moved all the furniture, we looked in every closet, every corner….  Nothing.

We finally gave up and called it a mystery, the great Houdini frog I guess.

 

A couple months later we were finishing up construction down in the studio and we needed to do some rerouting of the furnace duct work.

We removed the cold air return duct that joins to the furnace, and out fell this shriveled up black frog.

Somehow that frog must have made it to the cold air return vents on the first floor and made his way down to the basement within the duct work.

With all that airflow flowing over the frog for all that time, he came out as a petrified Black Frog.

 

We were still looking for a name for the studio at the time, and we looked at each other and said, “Black Frog Recording”!!  Loved the name instantly.

When we started producing more music, we got together with our bass player and then began playing little gigs here and there. 

Eventually those little gigs turned into bigger and more numerous gigs.

We just morphed the name of the studio into the band Black Frog.   Cool band name too.

 

Then we started thinking about something for a logo.  We threw around lots of ideas of a cartoon-like frog with a top hat, or a biker jacket, but it didn’t have that feeling of it being ‘just right’.

We have a graphic artist friend who does work for us,  and he suggested that since we do a lot of biker events why not have a frog skeleton of some sort?  Bikers always have skulls and such on everything.

Great idea.  All we did then was find an appropriate frog skeleton to use.  Our logo actually is a real frog skeleton- we used a picture of the skeleton from some university’s biology department.

They had a bunch of pictures of all sorts of skeletons of animals on their website.  So we used that actual picture of a skeleton, turned it black and white, added the name lettering, and BINGO!   Perfect.

Everyone loves the frog skeleton logo, and we sell a lot of t-shirts with the big frog logo.

 

We have the copyright on Black Frog, so why not use it as Black Frog Ironworks?  It makes for a cool stamp in metal too.

[divermike]

Well it has been a few years now since I posted my question about naming my forge, and since I moved from the finger lakes area of NY to the greater Kalamazoo area of Michigan, and since I still live in a forest, I am definitively naming my new shop "Forge in the Forest".

The eatery in Carmel still exists where the smithy once sat, and I still love to go there and eat, especially now I know the history of Francis Whittaker, the business cards are made and the sign will be up soon as the shop is finished. Any of you iron pounders come around Kalamazoo, you are welcome with just a warning phone call so as I can chill something wet for ya!

[ThorsHammer82]

My welding shop is Thor's Hammer Industries. Not sure what I'll call my forge. May stick with that May go with Metal works instead of industries. Who knows.

 

To give you an idea of why the name. I'm approximately 75% Norwegain/scandinavian. 20% germanic, and 5% of this that and the other so I identify with my Norse liniage more than most. Some friends started calling me the Norwegian about 10-12 years ago and it stuck. Than when I married my wife, my Italian father inlaw's name is Thor. So combining that with my norse liniage I had the perfect excuse to name my son Thor. Well we couldn't figure out a middle name that went with it (Father in law doesn't have a middle name) so we made Thor his middle name. And since the intent is to leave all my metal working equipment to my children I decided to call it Thor's Hammer.  Mjolnir just doesn't flow off of most people's tongues quite right. at 6'5" and 245 lbs I think I do the name justice, though My wife would kill me if I tried for the bearded long haired viking look. lol. She might only be 4'10.5" and 110 lbs, but that woman will strike fear into the heart of the strongest warrior.

 

and since we gave one son the middle name of a god, we had to give his brother a matching name. so I've got a 3 yr old with the middle name Thor, and a 15 mnth old with the middle name Loki. I may live to regret it, but its fitting.

[BackyardBlacksmithin]

Backyard Blacksmithin, pretty self explanatory, seeing as how I live smack in the middle of town. I considered naming it bad neighbor blacksmithing but decided to stick with the first one. ;)