Formula One is rife in Europe but Barcelona, Spain has lost its place on the grid to the beach side track in the Netherlands, aka Holland -Zandvoort Circuit. Zandvoort has risen from the dunes as the Dutch eagerly awaits great…
Blog Archives
“I Think, Therefore I Yam…”
“…what I yam.” (A.k.a. “The Descartes-Fleischer Hypothesis of Reflexive Consciousness”) Let’s start this post with a Brighter Naming PSA: give blood! Both Athol and I are blood donors, and occasionally run into each other when the bloodmobile shows up. In…
Son of Nomen Est Omen
In previous posts, I’ve advanced the idea that a name can be so bad that it’s good. Deliberately or by accident, a name comes out that provokes the reaction: “Well, if they’re using that name and they’re still in business,…
Tagged with: food naming, naming agency, naming ideation, trademarking
Posted in Consumer Goods, Food Names, International Naming, Name Origins, Retail
Posted in Consumer Goods, Food Names, International Naming, Name Origins, Retail
It takes some spunk to name your company Splunk.
When I first heard the name Splunk® I thought how cool a name it was. Surely one of those new mobile apps for and by millennials. No, rather it is the name of a back end data server and privacy…
Tagged with: #scientificnaming, Creative Naming, naming agency, naming ideation, trademarking
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Technology Names, Trademarks
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Technology Names, Trademarks
Inside Steve’s Brain quotes me at length about iPod name
It only took 10 years, but finally a good friend called me and said “Athol, do you know you are quoted in one of Steve Job’s biographies?” Well, yes indeed, Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney has recently been expanded…
Patreon – Patrons for the Ages
From the minute I learned about Patreon I have been pleasantly overwhelmed with the cleverness of their offerings, and the memorability of their name. Of course I wondered why they had not tried harder to be Patron or Patron something.…
Tagged with: Blog Names
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Hospitality & Travel, International Naming, Name Origins, Naming News, Strange Names, Trademarks
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Hospitality & Travel, International Naming, Name Origins, Naming News, Strange Names, Trademarks
Brand quiz answers
(Disclaimer: I did rely on search engines and Wikipedia for some of the amusing and interesting background info. As author of the quiz, I knew most of the answers to these questions when I posted them – except Question 1)…
Tagged with: Creative Naming, food naming, naming consultants, Naming resources, trademarking, Transportation
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Food Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, People Names, Trademarks, Transportation
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Food Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, People Names, Trademarks, Transportation
Family brand name quiz – while you eat and drive
While putting together a previous post (“Nomen Est Omen?” Uh, Not Always…) I got to thinking about both family and given names that are now well-known brands. There are enough quirky examples and stories that I thought I’d put together…
Tagged with: Transportation
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Food Names, Name Origins, People Names, Trademarks, Transportation
Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Food Names, Name Origins, People Names, Trademarks, Transportation
When a V sounds like a W and a W sounds like V or Do as DU
This may cause both embarrassment and offense when words, names, actions and abbreviations can be misconstrued, through pronunciation and misinterpretation. And it all depends on your home language. I recently had a tutorial with an ESL Post-grad student. He apologized…
What’s in a classical musical name?
I do enjoy seeing articles about naming, as long as it is not YASOI (Yet Another Set Of Initials). Today I had the pleasure of seeing such an article as I pulled up my favorite classical radio station KDFC on…
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