We asked. You gave us over 400 name ideas.
The polls to pick the winner are now open!
Until Dec. 13, Mercury News readers can vote on the top 10 most popular names submitted for San Jose BART’s tunnel boring machine — a device that will dig a nearly 5-mile pathway underneath the city and create a ring of transit around the Bay Area. Known as a TBM, these machines have traditionally been named after women of local significance, like Seattle’s “Bertha,” which carried the namesake of Seattle’s first female mayor.
In nominating the name “Janet Gray Hayes,” reader Jane Horvath suggests San Jose should do the same.
“Just as the TBM is breaking new ground in large diameter excavation, Janet Gray Hayes was the first elected female mayor of a large American city when she took office in San Jose in 1975,” Horvath explained as to why she nominated the former city leader who passed away in 2014 at the age of 87. “She championed controlled urban growth, restoration of historic buildings, and the transformation of San Jose into a model city… goals which all line up with VTA’s aspirations for the extension of BART into Silicon Valley.”
Others are hoping the TBM, which has been described as a mechanical worm, gets a sci-fi reference attached to it.
“Shai-Hulud is the name given to the Sandworm, a great tunneling worm in Frank Herbert’s Dune, a sci-fi classic enjoying a contemporary resurgence thanks to new film adaptations by Denis Villeneuve,” wrote Kerry Maeve Sheehan.
And finally, some want a variation of the comical name for a British underwater autonomous vehicle: Boaty McBoatface. Will the custom-made, $76 million TBM from Germany be called Boring McBoringface…or Diggy McDigface?
Out of the hundreds of submissions received by the Mercury News, here are our honorable mentions:
- Molezart
- San Hol-se
- Ms. PacMan
- BARTholomew
- Silc-worm (Silicon valley + earthworm)
- Dolores (named after labor activist Dolores Huerta)
- Minetainator (After former San Jose Mayor and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta)
- Gusano (“worm” in Spanish)
- The Terra-bite
- The Happy Hollower
The winner of the naming contest will be announced towards the end of December.