What do you do when you need to name a vehicle, be it a research vessel or some snowplows? Minnesota knows the right answer: Ask the internet. The replies to the state’s contest to name its snowplows may have you in tears.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation launched the contest in December. Like Scotland, Minnesota wanted the internet to give it some creative and side-splitting names, and by golly it delivered. The names were voted on, and here are the top eight, from Minnesota Department of Transportation:
The top 8 winners were:
- Plowy McPlowFace – Metro District
- Ope, Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya – District 4
- Duck Duck Orange Truck – District 1
- Plow Bunyan – District 2
- Snowbi Wan Kenobi – District 6
- F. Salt Fitzgerald – District 7
- Darth Blader – District 3
- The Truck Formerly Known As Plow – District 8
The very predictable Plowy McPlowface won with a stunning 65,292 votes. Ope, Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya, a name that’s pure Minnesota, pulled a mere 29,457 votes. The state was kind enough to publish the top 50 finalists, which you can find here for some additional laughter. The Department also runs some snowplow cameras so you can watch the beauty of snowplowing equipment in action.
One of the top entries, Abolish ICE, was removed from the final list, the New York Times reports. It’s absolutely the perfect name for a plow truck, and I can see why it was right at the top. But Department of Transportation felt that the name was too political.
Winter may be coming to a close — I hope — but for these remaining days it won’t hurt to have a laugh or two at a plow truck’s name. Admittedly I’ve laughed harder than I probably should have at a few of these. This makes me wish Illinois did something similar.