Somewhere in America, a 2022 Rivian R1T answers to Sherman.

Sherman isn't alone. When you connect to Recurrent, you can give it a nickname. Thousands of owners have. Scroll the list and you stop seeing VINs and start seeing pets.

That’s why we ranked them. Including different spelling variations, all names have more than 10 active vehicles in the Recurrent community. 

Here's what people are actually calling their electric cars.

The EV names leaderboard

  1. Tessie
  2. Ruby
  3. Tess
  4. Sparky
  5. Bluey
  6. Pearl
  7. Tessy
  8. Jarvis
  9. Tessa
  10. Ghost
  11. White Lightning
  12. Blue
  13. Evie
  14. Electra
  15. KITT
  16. Wattson
  17. Zippy
  18. Grey Ghost
  19. Batmobile
  20. Stella
  21. Big Red
  22. Raven
  23. Shadow
  24. Eve
  25. Luna
  26. Baymax
  27. Gray Ghost
  28. Flash
  29. Casper
  30. Nikola

Did you notice the same affectionate shorthand for the same brand? Tessie is first. Tess is third. Tessy is seventh. Tessa is ninth.

Several other interesting patterns emerged as we looked through the names. Here are a few that caught our eye.

Pun names

Lots of EV owners couldn't resist the electricity joke.

Sparky leads them, sitting comfortably in the top five. Behind it: Electra, Wattson, Joules, Zippy, Flash, Storm. Nikola made the list too, a quieter nod to the man whose name is on a lot of these cars in the first place.

Color names

Then there are the owners who focused on the paint.

Ruby is the headliner here, second overall. Bluey and Pearl aren't far behind. Further down: Blue, Big Red, Silver, Silver Bullet, White Lightning. 

These names are simple, honest and hard to argue with.

Fandom names

The last big category is the one that says the most about who's buying these cars.

Jarvis cracks the top ten. Around it: KITT, Batmobile, Baymax, TARS from Interstellar, Toothless the dragon, Shadowfax the horse that outran every rider in Middle-earth, and Serenity for the sci-fi diehards.

These owners didn't name a car. They cast it.

What it adds up to

You learn something watching tens of thousands of people name the same kind of machine. For a lot of people, their EV is more than a vehicle. It’s a character, a dragon or a Civil War general.

People name the things they're attached to. Judging by the list, a lot of EV owners are pretty attached.