Robonk is a Portmanteau

An obvious question with a new comic strip is what to name the main character. I didn’t have a name out of the gate, so I had to come up with one. I figured it would be nice to have a name that was:

  1. Distinctive
  2. Memorable
  3. Containing a tie-in with robots and/or psychology
  4. Available as a .com domain
  5. Short

I played around with some names based from famous people in the psychology field, but ultimately ended with a combination of two terms, which makes the name a portmanteau. From the Wikipedia page for portmanteau:

A portmanteau (Listeni/pɔːrtˈmæntoʊ/, /ˌpɔːrtmænˈtoʊ/; plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux /-ˈtoʊz/) or portmanteau word is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words or their phones (sounds) are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel.

The portmanteau that is Robonk comes from:

  • Robot: The term robot originated from Czech “robota” for ‘forced labor.’
  • Bonk: A common slang term for sex in the 1970s and 1980s was bonk.

Combine Robot and Bonk and the resulting portmanteau is Robonk.