JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colorado — When Americans celebrate the 100th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s iconic moonwalk, there’s a chance that moon will have a name, if the Jefferson County Library has anything to say about it.
“We kind of discovered by accident. We just had a random thought: ‘Oh, my goodness, the moon doesn’t have a name,” said Rich Furlong, the digital marketing specialist for the library. “That seems silly.”
Jefferson County Public Library, of all organizations, has created an online petition to get Earth’s moon a name, and they already have one in mind: Geoff.
“Our first idea was Jeff with a ‘J’ because we are Jefferson County Public Library. And then it kind of evolved into GEOFF because of the mnemonic device,” Furlong said.
They have it all figured out, of course. "Geoff,” pronounced Jeff, would mean “Earth’s Fickle Friend." It’s explained in their online petition like this:
GEO: Earth (because it's our moon)
F: Fickle (because it's always changing)
F: Friend (because it's always there for us)
The petition goes on to say:
Think this is silly? Well, it's not as silly as having a moon without a name. Think about it. The Sun isn't called "the star" and Earth isn't just "the planet," so why shouldn't the Moon have a name?
The moon should have a name, and its name should be Geoff.
Sign and share this petition if you agree.
If you think this is ridiculous, don’t let your angry keyboard fingers get the best of you just yet. This was all meant to be in fun. In fact, the library started this to raise awareness for the summer reading program.
“We don’t take ourselves very seriously. We are not going to shush you if you are talking in the library. We are fun people to be around. We want to be the center of your community,” Furlong said.
Several people did write to 9NEWS after the story aired, saying the moon has a perfectly good name already. They call it Luna.
We looked to the experts.
NASA writes: "Earth's only natural satellite is simply called "the Moon" because people didn't know other moons existed until Galileo Galilei discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610."
LiveScience.com quotes NASA as saying that, after other moons were discovered, “they were given different names so that people would not confuse them with each other. We call them moons because they orbit planets the same way that the moon orbits around Earth."
Furlong told us most people, but not all people, like the chosen name.
"We’ve had some pretty funny comments. One of my favorites is from a woman whose ex-boyfriend was named Geoff, so she was pretty upset we were naming it after her ex-boyfriend. We kindly recommended a book to her about breakups and moving on and hopefully, that would help her," he said.
One hundred people have signed over their support to the library. They plan to keep the petition up until they reach their goal of 1,000 signatures.
Until then, we invite you to consider the future: Blood Geoff, Super Geoff, Super Blood Wolf Geoff, Harvest Geoff, a full Geoff, Blue Geoff...
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