Clever Gene Names

Mutant males aren't interested in females. Later, more politically renamed as fruitless.

Female icebox mutants do not care about courting males.

The gene is involved in protein transport.

Mutation causes increased affection to alcohol.

The gene interacts with string.

Suzan Lewis, working in the FlyBase release 3 annotation project, writes about naming the gene: "It is the middle of the night (2:38 to be precise), I am away from friends and family, It has been this way for over 2 years, I can't sleep because of all the work there is yet to do, and there is no end in sight. So when do the magic little elves appear out of nowhere and get everything done?"

Mutant males get stuck in females.

Mutant flies' brains have swiss-cheese-like holes.

Cheryl Van Buskirk writes: "The mutant ovaries produce egg chambers that contain eight instead of sixteen cells. Since there are 16oz in a pint, we figured it was a pretty fitting name. Half pint is also an informal term for a very short person, and it so happens that the mutant eggs were indeed quite short. Sadly, the official gene name has since become Dmel/pUf68, based on its molecular weight and homology to poly-U binding splicing factors, and the name half pint is considered a synonym."

The fuculokinase gene of this bacterium is known of this clever abbreviation.

Abbreviation for janus kinase. The gene codes an essential kinase (= an enzyme phosphorylating other proteins) that functions in the internal signalling system of cells. In the Janus kinases, there are two phosphate-transferring domains. Thus, it got its name from the Roman two-faced gatekeeper of the heaven Janus. 
The abbreviation JAK is also said to stand for "just another kinase" as there are so overwhelmingly many kinases in the body that no-one can remember them all anyway.

One of the POK genes (encoding proteins which turn off other genes): POK Erythroid Myeloid Ontogenic factor. Pokemon is an oncogene: if it is mutated, it can cause cancer. In fact, it appears to be a master switch for cancer.
The primary name recommended by OMIM is "ZINC FINGER- AND BTB DOMAIN-CONTAINING PROTEIN 7".

Tigger is a transposable element in the human genome, i.e. it can jump to another location in the genome. Tigger, in A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, was a bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy character.

This stands for at least eleven different genes in the human.

The full name of this gene is "sema domain, seven thrombospondin repeats (type 1 and type 1-like), transmembrane domain (TM) and short cytoplasmic domain, (semaphorin) 5A". When a new gene is found, often all that is known of it is that it resembles some other genes. So, it easily gets named "gene like this and that gene", like this one involved in axonal guidance. Fortunately, this gene is usually called just SEMA5A, which is its official short symbol.

Mutant sheep have huge, muscular bottoms. Callipyge (greek) means "beautiful buttocks".

The gene guides growing nerve axons in grasshopper. Lazarillo earns his living by guiding a blind person in a 16. century Spanish novel by an anonymous author "La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades contadas por el mismo" or  "The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes, his fortunes and misfortunes as told by himself."