On a related note, several times following a formal show I've been pulled off to the side by an [unknown to me] audience member who will ask some version of "What's the name of that trick you did with the..." From this simple question I immediately know two facts:

1) this person is a magician, and

2) he wants to "steal" a particular routine I performed in the show.

I always try to have "names" for my routines that sound like they might be right... but they aren't. Titles such as "An Impossible Quandary" or "Flight of Silver". Sometimes they go on to ask where that particular trick was published and (in a move I learned from Bob Kohler) I always answer "Greater Magic".

TW

Excellent idea Thomas ! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Oliver.

To address Mad Jack's initial comment - I would title effects promotionally to "my preference" for youtube listings, allowing me to direct potential clients where I want without attracting other magicians presentations. So - crystal casket becomes "Mad Jack's Something From Nothing".

I like to use the same approach regarding actual show listings and titles - I use the FINAL audience spoken cue words (for audio, tech and light cues) to describe the effect not just for the techs, but also for my own people to use internally.

For example, the sword box's final spoken cue is "we use magic of the past to create an ILLUSION OF THE FUTURE" - ILLUSION OF THE FUTURE is our tech cue word fot them to operate by, how we (my team) refers to it, AND how we sell it to the audience (verbally and printed program).

Brooms becomes - Mind Over Matter
Mismade becomes - Breakaway
Chef's Surprise becomes - Pot Luck

This puts EVERYONE on the same page - allows me to customize the title to my presentation - loses the "generic magician labels" depending on my creativity - and can make the title far more memorable for everyone concerned.

Just my humble opinion,

MM

In that you can call it (a) origami, or, (b) anything else you can think of in any language, I'd say (b) is the better, and fairly obvious, option

I try my best to not mention names of illusions in my show. However, with my presentation, it's unavoidable for a few of my illusions. So, in that case, Sub Truck becomes the "Houdini Box," Things that go Bump becomes "Ghost Busters" (I perform it as a Ghost Busters theme), etc.

Is is so important?
If you present an effect well enough it will be appreciated & enjoyed. I have always called the 'Zig Zag' by its given name. Harbin did not name it recklessly... it had a good reason to be named such.
There are other effects that I have renamed BUT only because it was reasonable to do so at the time.
I often give a little history about an effect(as with the Sub Trunk) and make no apologies for this. I may rename the trick but I do not believe it makes any difference.
If I perform badly it reflects on ME and not on a named trick.

BTW,,, on the patent that Steinmayer submitted the 'Origami' was just called 'Illusion apparatus'

"I have always called the 'Zig Zag' by its given name. Harbin did not name it recklessly... it had a good reason to be named such."

I doubt that many things are named "recklessly," or even arbitrarily. but the tendency to deify harbin and elevate to scripture the 20 or so fairly unextraordinary pages about the zig zag in harbin's book rides the line between respect and pure lackeyism.

Origami is a beautiful word and most people know it's the art of folding...so I just call it Origami

Me too - in my mind it's dumb, cause of several reasons - some named above. And in addition to that it's uncreative. There may be some very rare exceptions, but I would surely try to do anything to avoid one exception.

=> Even worse if you use the original name in the headline of your youtube video (or in it's tags). And there are a lot of those unreflected youtube magicians. (Maybe they have a meaningfulness complex? Dunno.)

"Is is so important?
If you present an effect well enough it will be appreciated & enjoyed."

you appear to be missing the point. the main point of the question is: Should you give a fake name so people don't look it up on youtube and find out how it's done; or, alternatively and somewhat less plausibly, will a magician find out the names of what you performed, and thereby steal your act. there are probably hundreds of other threads where the homespun wisdom that "If I perform badly it reflects on ME and not on a named trick" is a better fit.

Just thought about it again a second. Do Close-Up Magicians call the effects they present by their name ?

I mean, I never heard someone say : "And now the famous homing card effect called the Ambitious Card".

Never !

Oliver.

I've heard it referred to, many times, as "ambitious card" while being performed. but never as a "homing card effect," at least notin a performance.

it's hard to imagine the name -- any name, real or fake, illusion or close-up -- adding much to the value of any effect. either the name describes what it does (in which case it either needlessly describes what you're about to see, or redundantly describes what you just saw) or it doesn't (and as a basically arbitrary name that doesn't relate to the effect, it's extraneous information).