Do Your Call it a Moon Bounce, Bounce House, or a Bouncey Castle?
Note: This original blog post from 2012 was recently updated to reflect how inflatable rentals have changed over the last 12.5 years.
If you haven’t noticed, moon bounces have many names. Having grown up outside of Washington, DC, in Bethesda, MD, everyone I knew called them Moon Bounces. Turns out Moon Bounces go by many names, usually dependent on the regional location. So depending on where you are from, you might know these inflatables as a “moon bounce,” they also go by “bounce house,” “bouncey castle,” “bouncers,” “jumpers,” “moon walks,” jump house,” or simply “jumps.” Many people just outright call them “inflatables” or “inflatable rentals.”
Categories of Inflatable Rentals (in addition to moon bounces)
If that wasn’t enough, there are also different types of moon bounce rentals, or, depending on your preference, “bounce houses” ;). Aside from regular moon bounce rentals, there are also moon bounce combos, themed moon bounces, indoor moon bounces–and then all sorts of other rentals that a like moon bounces in that they’re inflatable but are so much more. For example, giant inflatable slides, water slides, obstacle courses, and then others that are hard to categorize, like the Ninja Warrior, Hungry Hungry Hippo, and mechanical bull inflatables.
How “Moon Bounce” names vary by location
Here are some details of “moon bounce lingo” if you will and how the name of these inflatable rentals change from one location to the next. What’s great about being part of the largest moon bounce (or bounce house;-)) rental company in America is that Astro Jump is national, so we see it all and how names vary across our entire country. Bouncey Castle seems to be the most popular in the Mid-Atlantic region. Moon Bounce may be the preferred name in the Washington, DC area, but a lot of people also call them Bounce Houses. Then again “bounce house is common in lots of places. For example, Astro Jump of Louisville says Bounce House is the most common name in Louisville and Indiana and Kentucky. However, out in San Jose “Jump House” is the word of choice.
Good news is regardless of what you call them, Astro Jump has the biggest selection of moon bounces and other inflatables in the greater Washington, DC region, including Maryland and Northern Virginia.