Origin of the name Go Go Gnome

Every now and again people that visit this website are surprised by the domain name "gogognome.nl". They ask how I thought of this name.

When I was 18 years old, a couple of friends asked me whether I wanted to join playing the role playing game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Of course I agreed to join them.

The first character I played was a tinker gnome, whose gnomish name I will not write down here, because that name is far too long... The name used by humans for my character was Smarty.

Smarty invented lots of practical things. One of his inventions was a device that allowed a gnome to escape from a dire situation. It looks like a parachute. In fact, it was a wooden box that has a powerful spring inside. By pulling a lever the spring would be released and the gnome wearing the device would be launched escaping his dire situation.

Ever since I was a small kid I was font of the cartoons of Inspector Gadget. Inspector Gadget has a lot of gadgets, but none of them works as expected when needed. This typically happens with gnomish inventions too. They tend to become very big and cumbersome and almost never do what they were intended for.

When Inspector Gadget wants to activate one of his gadgets, he says "go go gadget..." followed by the name of the gadget. Combining all these things I ended up with the name "Go Go Gnome" for Smarty's invention.