Citizens of Mingovia, rejoice — Barkevious Mingo, incoming freshman and prospective LSU linebacker, has won the coveted Name of the Year award.Name of the Year, a group founded in 1983 with the mission “to discover, verify, nominate, elect and disseminate great names,” placed Mingo as a No. 4 seed in the 64-name tournament on its blog back on March 17.The West Monroe native has gone up against the likes of Chew Kok, Atilla Bucko, Taco Vandervelde, Crystal Metheny and Nutritious Love.Name of the Year insists every name in its tournament is real, “to the best of our knowledge.”The field was reduced to two on April 20 where Mingo was pitted against Michigan graduate student Iris Macadangdang.”That’s pretty awesome, I’m not going to lie,” said Lee Gresham, theatre freshman. “I have a feeling he’s going to be a fan favorite with LSU fans, because that’s pretty funny.”More than 10,400 votes — including 1,147 in Louisiana — were cast in the final, with Mingo triumphing by a 54-46 percent margin.”First of all, that’s crazy,” said Kelvin Sheppard, LSU junior linebacker. “That’s out of all the crazy names in America, and he finished first. That’s pretty cool.”Much of Mingo’s success can be attributed to Spencer Hall, a University of Florida alumnus who is the driving force behind Every Day Should Be Saturday, a popular college football blog.”Almost everything on EDSBS is just kind of something that sticks in my mind or appeals to my imagination,” Hall said. “I loved the name the first time I saw it on Rivals.com, and my degenerate readers got behind it.”What started as a fascination with a name soon turned into a movement to declare Barkevious Mingo as the Name of the Year.But Mingo’s victory doesn’t begin to tell the story — it doesn’t explain the state of Mingovia or the notion of a “Steampunk Emperor.””I was talking to my brother about just the name [Barkevious Mingo] itself, and he said, ‘That sounds like a villain who travels in his own blimp,'” Hall said. “Ideas about Flash Gordon got thrown around, and all of a sudden you’ve got this Steampunk Emperor.”The Mingovian crusade was close behind as the state of Mingovia took shape. Images of Mingo with cannon-arms, riding various mounts from zeppelins to war elephants appeared, urging EDSBS readers to vote Mingo for Name of the Year.Hall even unveiled a Mingovian national anthem, that “probably sounds something like” the anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, complete with the lyrics, “Vanquished if you’re lucky – far worse if you should lag, In battle with Lord Mingo, You’ll end up bound and gagged.””That stems from my desire to have everything be a hammy South Park musical,” he said.Not everyone appreciates Lord Mingo’s cult status, as Hall concedes. For many there’s still the matter of whether he can fulfill his four-star status at outside linebacker from his days at West Monroe.”It’s just his name,” said Brittany Gay, graphic design freshman. “Why does that matter? Can he play good?”Only time can answer that. But if he can, expect to see 92,000 people screaming for passports to Mingovia.”This isn’t so much about what we can do with the name, but what LSU fans can do when set loose with it,” Hall said. “They are by far the most creative fan base in the country.”—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]