The Top Ten Non-Yelf Yelf Sites

One of the interesting aspects of researching such an unusual name is that you tend to get very proprietorial about its use. Any genuine hit on a search engine that doesn’t relate to a family member in some way is viewed with an almost ‘Hey, don’t they know that someone’s name they’re playing about with there?’ attitude. I can’t imagine that this is an issue with names like Smith or Miller or suchlike but I thought I’d take you on a quick spin of all those non-Yelf Yelfs that seem to crop up from time to time. Lets start with the daddy of them all which is starting to appear quite frequently.

1. The Yelf Spiral
Sounds fun but is actually a way of prioritising jobs and not even named after a proper Yelf

“Educators, corporate executives, and everyday computer users probably agree that the Internet has made it easier and faster to complete projects. However; as technology evolves, so does the demand from a fickle consuming public. We want better, faster, smaller products.

ASU researchers are helping with the “better” and “faster” parts. They’ve developed a technique that helps reduce the inconsistency of waiting time that Internet users experience when working online.

As is the case with many other inventions, there is always room for improvement, says Nong Ye, director of ASU’s Information & Systems Assurance Laboratory (ISAL). Ye and ASU colleagues Xueping Li and Toni Farley created what they call the Yelf Spiral. Named for its three researcher/inventors (Ye, Li and Farley), the Yelf Spiral is a technique for determining the order of jobs to be serviced on-line.

It works to reduce the inconsistency of waiting time. Ye says that the technique involves scheduling jobs in a spiral fashion based on their processing times.”

2. Young Eritrean Liberation Front (YELF)
Not a website as such, but a Blog, and the reason that I had to use Yelf-family-digest as my address rather than just Yelf. There's just the one entry and the YELF -Master (!) says that

"As president of YELF I decided that it would be time to introduce YELF to the world....YELF was made so that people could meet the needs of a country called Eritrea."

Which is very laudable but I would have preferred a slightly different acronym, to be honest (Yelf sites for the Yelfs!)

3. Yelf Yelf
You can download your very own copy of this pop song from the Gulf of Arabia region (obviously like New York, so good he named us twice…). It lasts a whopping 4 minutes 21 seconds and would cost you a mere 79p. The artist is Abdul Aziz Al Arooj and you can listen to a short sample, although if you can make out the sound of Yelf in there you’ve far better hearing than I have…

4. Frankfurt Branch Office (YELF)
This Yelf seems to be a code to identify the Frankfurt Branch Office of Yazaki North America. What is Yazaki North America? Well, in a nutshell, it’s a company with a vision.

Yazaki North America's Vision
Yazaki North America will be the world's leading provider of easily configurable automotive network solutions and associated products that enable connectivity.

That’s pretty much gone over my head too, but I think they want to be big in the world of joining things up.

5. “yelf”
A quote from an article on Angels, fairies and elves, this one takes a little thinking about and probably best done after reading the article itself. Put crudely this particular Yelf is apparently a speech defect in those elves who
“…aspire to the sincerity that they see shining on the brows of the real selves, the ones who can say "my-self" and "your-self," not merely "melt" and "yelf," which is what the elves can say.”

6. "Yelf" My favourite of those listed, at number 6 we have Yelf the dog. As you can see Yelf is a very patient dog used for training on animal first aid injuries. Anyone who looks at his gallery and cannot empathise with the ‘dog with head bandage’ shot has a stony heart indeed.

“The Pet First Aid was a fun and informative course- attendees learned how to handle injured animals, bandaging, resuscitation and much more in this one day course. Huge thanks to Heather Ferguson and her dog "Yelf" for a great course.”

Well done Yelf - a patient and long-suffering dog.

7. WIKI –YELF
YELF also has an ex-page on Wikipedia. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life it sits there pushing up the digital daisies. You can read all about the discussion and its vote for deletion although not view the actual page itself. My interest was well and truly tickled as it looks as thought the article claims that the name of Yelf is somehow connected with Dane law! I should liked to have had a look at that, but its too late now…

8. Youth Environmental Leadership Forum III (YELF)
This is quite an interesting one as it seems to be a forum seeking grant funding from the North Shore Tribal Council, part of Indian and Northern Affairs in Canada. Their contract was due to expire in 2005 so I hope in the name of Yelf solidarity that it was renewed.

9. Natalie the Yelf
Beware of Yelf! A bit of a fantasy beast this one, but less swords and muscles more gingham and floral prints. A touch cat-like and altogether inoffensive. No doubt she has some incredible powers that only appear on a full moon …

10. YELF the poet I don’t know why but I find it slightly odd that someone would spend some considerable time searching about for an interesting pen-name and then end up calling themselves ‘Yelf’. No reason why not, of course, but its not one that I’d of picked, although you can see where it came from as her real name is Yvelle Fleury from Worcester, Massachusetts and some of her poems are available online

(A few didn't make the final list, including Yelf Aderlink a company accused of taking oil bribes from Saddam Hussain and type of raspberry trialled in Montanna. Both were excluded on grounds that they might well be typing errors. Better luck next time!)