Graceland. Ever heard of it?
Of course, most everyone knows it is the home that Elvis Presley built, but there are other famous homes that you may know by name. Fallingwater, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Pennsylvania home; The Biltmore, the Vanderbilt's North Carolina mansion; and The Breakers, Vanderbilt family's Rhode Island home.
Downton Abbey — okay that is from a TV show. Still, Robert Crawley, the fictitious Earl of Grantham, really was telling the truth when he said of his house: "I am a custodian, my dear, not an owner."
In our lives, we are all custodians of the houses and lives we build. Yes, we know the names of famous homes, usually the elaborate creations of wealth, but your own castle is every bit as meaningful.
Your home doesn't have to be a mansion to have a name and it needs one. A home is your heritage and your identity, something you pass on to children and grandchildren.
With that in mind, family names or traditions, especially quirky ones, are great for a home: Enfield Place, for example, maybe in honor of Dad's unusual middle name.
A house name can be inspired by nature: willows, oaks, bluebirds, pines, creek.
Or maybe by style: gables, craftsman, colonial.
You could just choose your own last name: The Thomas House.
You can think of your new home as the beginning of your own life's work, tell stories about it, and pass those stories on to the kids, letting them know the legend of the beginning of your family dynasty!