Boaters enjoying a cruise on a Bennington pontoon boat

Naming Your Pontoon Boat

As our owners know, Bennington pontoon boats can be ordered with literally thousands of variations, including panel colors, fabrics, seating arrangements, entertainment options and engine choices. All of this makes it possible to personalize your boat and make it unique to you. But there’s one more way to make your boat your own in an even more personal way: how you name it.

Naming boats is an age-old tradition, but the owners of clipper ships, merchant vessels and battleships always took themselves pretty seriously. There’s just no fun in Red Jacket, Argo Merchant, or Dreadnought. When all else failed, a ship owner could always name his new vessel after the missus. (Most of the time, it was probably the expected payoff for permission to buy a new boat.)

Naming your boat after a loved one is still at minimum a diplomatic decision, and at best a sincere expression of your regard. No one will raise an eyebrow if you call your pontoon boat Hortense, or Oliver. Even though boats are always referred to as “she,” that doesn’t prevent anyone from putting a man’s name on the transom. There are numerous classes of ships in the U.S. Navy named for presidents and military heroes, most of whom have been of the masculine persuasion.

But there are a lot of other things to do with boat names. They can reflect your profession, your heritage, your love of boating, or another favorite hobby. They can be about the boat itself or about you. They can be philosophical, witty, poetic, serious, or romantic. And puns—puns are a favorite way to go, often in combination with any of the above. (If you haven’t seen a boat named “Seas The Day,” you haven’t been paying attention.)

Boat Name Ideas

Here are some categories and examples, but we encourage you to use your imagination and come up with your own distinctive name, to make your pontoon boat even more distinctly your own. Unless, of course, you have to name it after your spouse.

Funny Boat Names

• Party Girl

• Fat Bastard

• In Deep Ship

• Sir Docks-a-lot

• What’s Up Dock

Clever Boat Names

• Forget-Me-Knot

• Aquaholic

• Fishy Business

• Fin and Tonic

• Rest A Shore

• Seas the Day

Meaningful & Classy Boat Names

• The Lady of the Lake

• Carpe Diem

• Oasis

• Hakuna Matata

• Silver Lining

• Wanderlust

• Can’t Take It With You

Relationship & Love Boat Names

• Seaduction

• Cherished Moments

• Love Boat

• On the Rocks

• Grounds for Divorce

• She Got the House

Profession Boat Names

• Sea-battical

• Offshore Banking

• Floating Doc

• Sunk Cost

• Joint Effort

• Sea Section

• Cntrl + Alt + Delete

• Squid Pro Quo

Inspirational Boat Names

• Courageous

• Allegro

• Nirvana

• Solitude

• Destiny

Historic Boat Names

• Golden Fleece

• Revenge

• Mayflower

• Bismarck

Media-Inspired Boat Names

• Millennium Falcon

• Black Pearl

• Nemo

• The Great Gatsea

• The Codfather

Risqué Boat Names

• Piece of Ship

• A Little Nauti

• Ship-Faced

• Fantasea

Pun Boat Names

• Dock Holiday

• Pier Pressure