It all began in Scotland in 2006. The Scottish Transport Ministry asked “wee” school children to come up with fanciful names for their snowplows. The idea was a huge success, and now every plow in the country has a moniker and all active plows (or gritters as they call them) are tracked on a wildly popular website.
The fun has now snowballed all around the world in locations that wear white for winter. If you live in a place that never needs a plow, it might be hard to understand why plow naming has become so popular. The answer is easy: you can’t survive a northern winter without a good sense of humor.
When I started looking up all the places that currently name plows and all the lists of names, I was amazed. There is a blizzard of names. From the hundreds and hundreds I found, I’ve edited it down to this list. It’s very punny.
- SCOTLAND
- For Your Ice
- Gritallica
- Lord Coldemort
- Gritney Spears
- Gritter Thunberg
- CANADA
- Sled Zeppelin
- Flurrious George
- School’s Not Cancelled
- My Fair Bladey
- Sleetwood Mac
- VERMONT (Vermont’s grade schools were all invited to submit names.)
- William Scrap-speare
- Blizzard Wizzard
- Brr-ito
- Snowasaurus
- Snow-manator
- MICHIGAN
- Aaron Brr
- Yooper Scooper (For those not familiar with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Yooper is a nickname for its residents.)
- Plowderpuff
- Big LePlowski
- Laker Scraper
- MINNESOTA 122,000 votes were cast by Minnesota residents in the 2021 inaugural Name the Snowplow contest.)
- Plow Bunyan
- F. Salt Fitzgerald
- Duck, Duck Orange Truck
- Snowbi Wan Kanobi
- Darth Blader
Even though March has arrived, our plows will not be able to rest for a while yet. We are all getting weary of winter, but laughter and cleared roads will see us through.
will wonders never cease!