Drag Queen

Drag Queen Accessories

“What’s in a name?” asked Juliet of Romeo. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Yeah, well, Juliet never met my drag-queen friend Rose Royce.

Drag-queen names are really important in gay life. (Why else would we come up with drag-queen-name-generating apps?)

The problem with finding the truly funny ones is that there are so many bad ones that sit on top of them. When our team manically scoured forums and skimmed through blog posts to find the good ones, we found thousands of drag-queen name possibilities — most constructed from such bad puns that they make you want to scoop your eyes out with a spoon.

What Makes a Drag-Queen Name Funny?

I posted the question to a couple of linguists, and here’s what they told me: First, all funny drag-queen names are a clever form of wordplay. Sometimes the drag-queen pun spoofs a real person (Queef Latina) or a fictional character (Ella Vader). Some allude to (Patty Melt), others to casual club-kid phrases (Anita Bump).

What’s in a name? Let’s see. A lot of “homos”: homophonic puns, homographic puns, and homonymic ones too. Some will make your eyes roll, but the best ones make you want to come up to the stage and tip big.