Neil Clarke, editor at Clarkesworld, published a list of the Top Ten Most Common Short Story Names, derived from the magazine’s first 50 thousand submissions. And, since there were a lot of ties, the actual number of titles in that Top Ten list is nearly 50.

I see four containing the word “home.” There were 16 submissions named “Home,” 16 for “Homecoming,” and 8 each for “Coming Home” and “Going Home.” A compelling numerical and semantic symmetry.

Although not a perfect match, it makes me a little embarrassed to have a short story titled “At Home.”

And, while I don’t have a story called “The Box” (which was #3 on Clarke’s list, at 15 submissions), I did start a serial called “The Crate” which didn’t generate much interest and was abandoned.

To be fair, once you do the math (and I always do the math) you realize that even the #1 short story name on the list, “Dust,” at 18 submissions accounts for less than one story every 2500 submissions. That’s actually not so bad, in my opinion.

Let’s just hope stories about kinnebecks and ligans don’t start taking off …