Name Awards

Boring name of the season

Of all the catalogs that besiege me at this time of the year, none have as boring a name as Harry & David.

Have you ever heard of them? What images spring to mind? Sure it is clean and simple. Might even work in the U.K. if done with enough class. But for a fruit gift company it’s enough to make me fall asleep right under the tree.

Camry only foreign to foreigners

For a long time I have documented the best selling Camry as an example of a coined name. More than that, a well-accepted coined word even by many who would never dream of naming their company or product line with a coined word.

But, as Bob Seawright now informs me, Camry is really a phonetic translation of the Japanese word Kamuri which means Crown. Back in the 1950’s, one of Toyota’s first car lines was called the Crown (and it still exists today in Japan). So from this parentage, we have Camry, Corona and Corolla - three different ways to say Crown! Because of the different American pronunciation, I still believe most of us will see it as an abstract, coined word. Either way it works fine… and shows how much more unique and special a name is when it stands for your product line and nothing else!

While Toyota is obviously very big, even small companies can use this style of naming for their products to stand out from the crowd. No one has heard of you anyway before you announce the name… if they make a small hesitation, then an effort, to remember the name, they are much more likely to remember it.

PS Now if anyone could tell me the real story behind the name Oreo I would be be in cookie heaven.

Time to dance the Xambala under the money tree

The Silicon Valley venture capital survey came out this weekend, but just for a change I am not going to poke fun at some of the company names that received funding - though it is always tempting. Rather I would like to point out some interesting name like Xambala. I am not sure what they do in the financials marketplace, but if they are half as good and efficient as Xoom.com they will be successful. I hear musical and African roots in this name…but that is irrelevant. Rather it scores well because it is unique, smooth and memorable. Soft in sound, but a nice sharp X for the graphics designers to explore.

Also interesting to see that deCarta continues to raise money. Isn’t this so much better a name for a mapping infrastructure company than their old Telcontar name!

Of course, our favorite name was the last company listed in the Energy sector: Solyndra (since my team made it up). If you visit them and understand their tagline The New Shape of Solar,  you will see how appropriate the name really is.

Intel inside Wikipedia

There is an interesting article on how Intel chooses project code names listed on Wikipedia, using geographic place names. But the assumption that this style is used since geographic names cannot be trademarked is false - and Intel knows that. But right now I can’t find a button on the great Wikipedia to edit the article - only one to edit the citations.

As but one small proof to the contrary, it always fascinates me that a jewelry wholesaler owns the Rio Grande!