Name Awards

Aussie Rugby Association gets a day in the solar sun

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this name was definitely something Australian. And since it looked like it was coined from some abbreviations, my brain jumped to Rugby Association, since I know rugby is Football in Australia… with a super nationalistic passion, even though they also play other styles of football.

Of course, if it really was the Australian Football Association, they would have at least had their logo designer put some (if not all the letters) in capitals. It is a proper noun after all. And the rugby scrum would have been pushing more in one direction – as only failed scrums are spun around.

Now I read that this is another important solar technology company, and I do know how hard it is to name all these green and solar companies springing up everywhere. They pretend they got the name Aus from Lithuanian language (of course you knew this right!), as well as their Australian heritage, and Ra from the Egyptian sun god, but he is not as famous as the character in the kids’  Babbar books. Who would have guessed that a Lithuanian Australian Egyptian could design solar technology?

This might be all well and good for us linguists having fun, but I hope it also works well for their salesmen on the phone daily having to explain they are from Ausra (spelled A u s r a) every call. Do they tell the long story above or just say it is a science fiction locale or Startrek spaceship?

Packaging makes the name shine

While names and words are fun and a serious business surrounding trademarks, we are after all humans. And most of us are very visual, so it is nice for a change to visit some packaging awards and see what is coming down the line.

In this case, down the line from the North. See all the brand packaging awards from Canada.

I guess I should have realized the X games would become a big enough brand to have their own energy drink. For some of us older folks, doesn’t the packaging remind you of those old OXO tins?

Some of our clients are “anal lytic” but this guy is serious

When it comes to naming your jewelry store, the great variety of options never ceases to amaze me.

Now was something here lost in translation?

Or is this the latest mystic fad in body art?

Skytap leads the way in cloud computing

No, it is not bottled rain water. In a recent article on cloud computing, I noticed all the usual awkward name suspects, along with attempts to include cloud (not a surprise), when this name jumped out at me and made me smile.

What a clever, clear way to say cloud computing resources………on tap. Congratulations.

This Buds not for you in Germany

Now that the US Budweiser Brand is owned by InBev of Europe, they took another run at the courts to get full European rights to the name Budweiser.

Unfortunately for them, the small Czech brewer who originally had the name prevailed again. They too have been using the name since the late 19th century and could prove it with very old advertising copy.
So the motto of this story is: If you copy your name from a small unknown company in Eastern Europe, don’t assume they will roll over and die, or even license you worldwide rights. Needless to say, every beer producer salivates at serving suds in Germany under their own brand name.

Mzinga no um singa in America

A client recently brought this name to my attention. “Why on earth would a company change its name from Prospero to Mzinga?” he asked. Well they don’t say anywhere on their website corporate information, so we can only assume something was broken or not working with Prospero. After all, there are no other reasons to change your name, especially when the company is doing well. [Ed. it has now been brought to my attention that Mzinga acquired Prospero]

But more interesting for me (being a namiac) was the choice of a Zulu word. Sure, finding domains is tough, but stretching to the Zulu language is not the norm. In fact, common and popular words in Zulu are all taken already as .com domain names too!

Mzinga, pronounced Um Zinga  (soft um), is the word for The Ring. But if you want to look this up in a Zulu dictionary, you have to enter zinga or  ~zinga. In English (and most Western languages) we modify words with particles at the end, like in  ringer, ringing, ringed, etc. or we use a pronoun like The or A in front. In Zulu, the modifier goes in front. You will see this too in other eastern African languages.

Did you know you can track African tribal migration by the commonalities in their languages? Tribes who migrated thousands of years ago share language similarities with the Zulu language. Of course, Zululand is part of South Africa, and they could migrate no further South without getting on a boat.

On the south west coast of South Africa, Xhosa is the dominant language, and it has almost nothing in common with Zulu, as it evolved from migration down the west coast. Now you might understand why South Africa has 6 official languages….four from  from tribal history (though there are more in usage), Afrikaans from the Dutch Settlers, and English from the English colonizers. They all come together at the bottom of the continent, in a country that has such a common name you have to use the term Southern Africa for the region and not the country name. A great melting pot. A country with a great tagline from that wise, wise man Dr Nelson Mandela: The Rainbow Nation.

PS In Zulu you will hear Hamba Gahle when people leave. No it does not mean Goodbye. It translates almost exactly into the common American farewell phrase: Take it Easy (literally Go Carefully).

PPS As you can see from the comment, Mzinga is used in Swahili for beehive …yes Eastern African language roots – beehives are round in nature after all. But Swahili is not a language per say. Like Fanagalo in South Africa, it is the common overlap of many languages used in the region. Purists might say a bastardization of all of them.