My naming pal (and fellow Toastmaster!) Jon Fredkove stopped by the office today for a chat. Great to finally meet him in person after all these years! I would love it if he moved here so he could work for me! (Hint, hint…)

We are always amused by our competitors when they glorify their naming processes as “proprietary” methodology and come up with mumbo jumbo voodoo jive to describe what’s behind the curtain. Sometimes all that behind the curtain is empty space. Let us say it again:

Everyone names things the same way, but some just do it better than others. When you can stand by your names proudly, you don’t need falderal to sell your names.

Which brings us to worldwide brand strategy, naming firm and falderal experts, NameTag® International, Inc.

( who claims their names are…)

Here is their International mumbo jumbo voodoo jive:

“Our proprietary Idiotics™ Ideonics™ process encompasses BrandVision™, strategic ideation, trademark assessment, brand testing and brand rollout assistance.”

Falderal to English translation:

Our process, that is like everyone else’s, involves thinking up names, checking for conflicts, testing it and stuff then pretend that we came up with great names (although we won’t tell you that part). Then, in our downtime, we sit around and think up junk like Ideonics™, BrandVision™ and:

InSight Research, which breaks down into four distinct options for your brand research needs:

· 4Sight™ provides our clients with rapid market indicators of the viability of their brand name.

· EquiTest™ measures the brand equity of an existing name.

· WorldTest™ serves as an international brand inference testing procedure providing a preliminary, global linguistic analysis in languages specified by the client.

· VeriTest™ addresses global research and is designed to assist clients with name assessment and final name candidate viability

Yikes. Nothing new there.

Here is what you get with Ideonics™ et al ; Everything from Amazara to Zintrepid, with STŌK, Sorian, Aerius, Cognis and <

span style="color:red;">Teligen in between.

They say:

We Say:

Eat My Words creates truly unforgettable names like Spoon Me frozen yogurt, Cake Financial, Frigid ice cream, BackBeat ear buds and iPod clock radio we named Moondance. We can do the same for you….and we promise never to say falderal ever again.

Here’s what you missed…

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A new government acronym is born.

Watch politicians for the next decade talk about EESA, or the… Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. This 3 page, then 110 page and now 451 page document spells out how the $700 billion will be spent. We are geeks and read it. What is interesting is that everything past page 113 are extras having nothing to do with the bailout. We especially love the addition at the bottom of page 300 (Sec 505: Exemption From Excise Tax For Certain Wooden Arrows Designed For Use By Children).

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Sarah Palin apparently thinks David D. McKiernan, the current Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan is in fact George Brinton McClellan a major general for the Union army during the American Civil War.

Also loved when she called her opponent O’Biden. One heartbeat away, you betcha!

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Virgin Airlines wusses out and names their airline experience Airphoria.

We get it, you get euphoric while you are in the air. Why not just use the real word? Lame.

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We love House. In this week’s episode, the patient du jour was having a reaction to three unnamed clinical trial drugs he was taking as a guinea pig. House wanted to give the medications a name so he based them on his three minions. The names of the medicines were, Bisexidrine, Cuckoldisol and WorldSorestKneesisil. Watch the episode, it’ll make sense then.

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Here is the Namethis.com lame name of the week:

This week we have a tie:

For “a gym which have been in operation for some time in Sunshine Coast are looking to change names and change business direction to become more of a boutique personal training studio than a gym.”

The winner is Mevolutionfitness.com. The client has not snapped this winner up as of 2:37AM 10-04-08

a Global Lifestyle Hotel that is Unconventional, Transgenerational, Social, Eclectic, Sexy -but not obviously so.”

The winner is Communinnty.com. The client has not snapped this winner up as of 2:37AM 10-04-08

Last week’s fav, “Pixelouvre.com“, is also still available.

According to the website they have “rewarded” $20,670 to their crowdsource community to date. Since they “reward” 80% of their income, that means Namethis.com’s gross profit is $5,176.50 for the four months they have been active. That equates to $1,291.88 per month. From this they have to cover all payroll, rent, latte’s, antacid, cell phone charges to their VC investors explaining how $1,291.88 a month before expenses is an adequate return on their $3,000,000 investment, aspirin, therapist fees, thesaurus to come up with new terms for “start up phase” and Internet access to Monster.com for searching for their next job.

Oracle announced its first hardware product this week, called Exadata. Yawn. Apparently, Oracle has been working on this product for three years. However, it sounds like they started working on the name part about three days ago and grabbed something off of a whiteboard at the last minute. We can’t find a description anywhere on the Oracle website on the meaning of Exadata, but they show a picture of the product that has an “X” on it, so that makes it clear….

Also, there is a joint HP /Oracle product that is being simultaneously released, which they are calling….wait for it……the

HP Oracle Database Machine

Really? Isn’t that a description rather than a name?

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison refers to the products as “radical new thinking”. Maybe, but not so much for the names.

In the “Sure, That Will Fix the Problem” files comes this “rebranding” news from WPP Group’s MindShare:

“The agency’s North American senior executives are relinquishing their formal job titles. For example, Scott Neslund, CEO of Mindshare North America, will now be identified simply as Scott Neslund, Mindshare North America, the agency said.”

In phase 2 of the job title changes to be implemented early next year, he will be identified simply as, “The Scottmeister”.

Also, for no apparent reason, they will now be known as Mindshare, not MindShare. In related news, they are negotiating with the City of New York (their headquarters location) to change the city’s spelling to neW yorK.

Interesting Trademark Lawsuit of the week: Intel is suing Intellife Travel for trademark infringement. We are all for protection of your trademark, but come on…..

One is a small travel agency specializing in travel between North America and China and one is the world’s leader in semiconductor technology. Well, we’re confused, but not in the way Intel thinks we are.

Techcrunch lays it all out for us.

We can’t help our fascination with the trainwreck of an idea, Namethis.com. Watch later for our discussion why it cannot possibly succeed as a real business (hint: it has something to do with venture capital backers wanting an actual ROI). If anyone wants to give us $3 million, we’ll tell you how to make it really work.

In the meantime, here is the Namethis.com lame name of the week: “Pixelouvre.com“, an original name for a modern e-commerce art gallery. The company preferred a “one-word name” that “must be available as a .com“. That one sentence alone explains dreck like Pixelouvre.com.

As anyone who knows anything about domain names knows, one-word names are all gone. Also, emphasis on names that must be available as .com forces the production of junk names. In any case, the explanation behind the creation of Pixelouvre.com is:

“pixel + louvre. pixel represents the ecommerce.” (a pixel is a single point in a graphic image..how does that represent e-commerce exactly?) “louvre: an art museum that is a famous tourist attraction in Paris (Right…. Lucky it starts with an “L” or else it wouldn’t have worked with pixe”l”) “the domain is available” (there is a reason for that).

P.S. As of 6:00 am Pacific time on 09-26-08, Pixelouvre.com was still available, so maybe the company that bought the name doesn’t want to waste another $9.99 to lock up this winner. We were going to buy it on a lark, but decided we didn’t want to face a Pixelouvre.com domain dispute dustup. For free, we offer the following (domain names available) as backups: PixelSmithsonian.com, PixelMuseumOfModernArt.com and PixelTheGetty.com.

Bengal Star Receiver Ditches Old Name (but fails at math)

Bengals receiver Chad Johnson (he is number 85) has legally changed his name to Chad Javon Ocho Cinco. The reason is that he wanted Ocho Cinco to be on the back of his football jersey, but the team would not permit that since their policy is to only have the players last name listed. Spanish is not our native tongue, but ocho cinco translates to 8, 5. 85 is ochenta y cinco.

Titan Prisons Rebranded as “Cluster Prisons”

Seems the English populace thinks the Titan Prisons (so named because extra large jails holding up to 2,500 prisoners) are not appropriate for proper rehabilitation. The solution? The Ministry of Justice is “rebranding” them as Cluster Prisons. Mind you, it is not changing anything but the name. It sounds like a cluster something. Other “rebranding” names considered were Crumpets, High Tea, Banger, Cheeky, Pish Posh and Mary Poppins.

E-namers – is №1 worldwide interactive naming-center, or so they say.

Um, we doubt it. E-ven their name sucks.

You know where the heart of the continent is? No?…… It’s Winnipeg, as evidenced by their new slogan:

Welcome to Winnipeg – Heart of the Continent. Proving once again that Canadians should give up on slogans that go nowhere. Runner up was Winnipeg – Spleen of the Continent.

Looks like they drew quite a crowd. What’s with the random VW racer?

America’s # 1 Populist ! blows the lid off of the Naming Industry! ! A populist is an advocate of democratic principles, making Naming Consultants Socialists or Communists we guess. His in-depth investigation uncovered our biggest secret; that Naming Consultants get $500,000 per name. He also introduced us to a great new word to explain what we do…humbuggery. He claims that “I’m not a naming consultant, so who am I to question?” Right. You be a populist and we’ll name stuff. We’ll give you the friend discount and charge you only $400,000.
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In an article entitled The 6 Coolest Jobs for Weird Majors, one of our competitors explains their naming process:

Linguistics plays a big role at New York-based namebase, a brand naming firm responsible for coining “Fruitopia” and Tyson’s “Any’tizers,” says President and Creative Director Jim Singer. The daily grind at Singer’s firm involves searching for a neologism (a coined word) that communicates so well, it virtually advertises the product itself. Sound is key. The name of a small car should sound small. The name of an antidepressant should sound helpful or upbeat. The company’s linguistic analysis checks for word associations and colloquialisms in a variety of languages.

Some Eat My Words differences in process:

1. We don’t consider our work a ” daily grind”. The only grinding at our office is the fresh coffee beans we start our day with.
2. We don’t search for coined words that virtually advertises the product, but rather look for real words that do advertise the product.
3. We think a name should not sound small or helpful or upbeat , but rather evoke small or helpful or upbeat.
4. None of our names have apost’rophes in w’eird pla’ces.

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“Branding expert” Laura Reis recently changed the name of her blog to Ries’ Pieces in an entry entitled “The Time for Change in Now.” She explains that “pieces is a great triple entendre that describes my blog posts, TV appearances as well as the correct pronunciation of my name.”

Further she fesses up that “there is one problem. You can’t use apostrophes and other punctuation marks in a website address. But you can cover your bases by buying close but incorrect names and redirecting them to your main site. I got RiessPieces.com and RiesesPieces.com to cover my new name and address RiesPieces.”

She goes on to say, “No name is ever 100% perfect, but Ries’ Pieces is a name that I think is worth moving to.” WHAAAAAAAAAT????????? No name is ever 100% perfect???!!! On the contrary.

Next up is the self-proclaimed “Last Word in Naming”, Zenmark.

Besides being the last word in naming, they are the first to apply for a patent on a naming process, or should we say a “Verbal Identity Engineering Process.”

Really. No joke. They did it. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

Zenmark Brand Engineering, Inc. announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has received and acknowledged the company’s patent application filing for its invention of a unique and innovative creative development process in the area of product, service, and company naming. Zenmark’s Verbal Identity Engineering (Patent Pending) process has proven to revolutionize the naming industry by applying a rigorous and repeatable methodology to the often unstructured and undisciplined process of brand name creation.

“Our engineered approach combines art with science, which is entirely new to naming,” said Greg Balla, president of Zenmark. “By adding scientific scrutiny to the process of legal analysis, linguistic assessment, and market testing, it gives clients more confidence that the names they ultimately choose will be the ideal vessels for their verbal identity and the most solid infrastructure for building brand equity.

Wow.

We have a few questions:

1. Do you want a naming company to apply a rigorous and repeatable methodology to your naming project? Does it sound even remotely creative? We want our dentist to apply a rigorous and repeatable methodology to cleaning our teeth, but that’s about it.
2. What’s wrong with being unstructured and undisciplined? We embrace it. The best names come from non-linear thinking.
3. Proven to revolutionize the naming industry? According to whom?
4. “What on earth is adding scientific scrutiny to the process of legal analysis, linguistics and market testing? Scientists are not good namers.
5. We would love to take a look at the patent application, but we can’t find it in the USPTO database. According to the Patent Office it takes 1.5 to 2.5 years to get a patent. Zenmark applied in May 2005, so…..

This (patent pending) process is so revolutionary and unique that Zenmark warns…yes warns potential clients that:

“Zenmark’s Verbal Identity Engineering (patent pending) Process can currently be shared with you and your team only under non-disclosure. Federal law prohibits any unbound discussion of the trade-secret details involved in the Zenmark Design Team’s unique creative development in the area of naming and branding.”

We share mints with our clients and never threaten them with federal statutes.

OK, so what does all this double-talk and folderal about engineering and scientific scrutiny get you?

The Zenmark Portfolio!

• Airave
• Afaria
• Amicor
• Applimation
• Audistry
• Certiport
• Evoltra (anyone else think of revolting when reading this name?)
• Explorist
• Fusic
• HipTop
• Jurni
• LifeDrive
• MassTrans
• Mobshop
• NetVein
• Print 2.0 (Nothing like immediately time-stamping a client’s name.)
• RoadMate
• SabreSonic
• Suvus
• Trax
• Vistrio
• Wellbound
• XOHM (Read our previous post about this howler which is a leading contender for the worst name of 2008)
• Zoove

So that’s what a rigorous and repeatable methodology buys you. On the other hand, if you want a name that is free-wheeling and unique like Neato home cleaning robots, Spoon Me frozen yogurt, Cake Financial, Frigid ice cream or Monkey Dunks dips for kids, give us a call.

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In the company most in the need of an immediate name change department is the Viet Nam based airline company “Air Speed Up”. It turns out that the name in Vietnamese means “Death and Grief.”

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We think it is not a wise move to name a children’s product something that implies child abuse. Apparently the “PopATot” people don’t have such qualms.

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The name change explanation of the week comes from SaleBuild, who changed their name to Salesify.

Here, is their own words, is the impetus behind the name change:

The Company’s former sales-centric services have been significantly expanded to include marketing processes and the name, Salesify, reflects this strategic repositioning.

The Salesify name is also aspirational, and while grounded in more than 30 years of industry experience, points towards our dynamic, innovative and out-of-the box thinking,” continued (company CFO, Oliver) Deng.

Um, what? Did they that name from Namethis.com?

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drank is the past tense drink that comes to us promising us that it will “Slow your roll” with a combination of valerian root, melatonin and rose hips. We are getting sleepy already.

The problem is that drank is a slang term for a homemade cocktail consisting of Sprite soda and prescription strength Promethazine/Codeine Cough Syrup. Good idea…..really. We think their next product should be an energy drink called Speedball.

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Our favorite book title of the week is:

Momma Is Daddy Going to Hell?

From the book description we get:

Captivated by the sermons on Hell at his mother’s church, Little Johnny started to question his mother about the great abyss. His curiosity covers topics such as the fate of his adulterous father, celebrities, false teachers and different religions to name a few. (our emphasis)

We think this is less about Little Johnny’s curiosity and everything about his adulterous father. The book title we think is not a question, but a hoped for fate for Little Johnny’s adulterous daddy by Little Johnny’s momma.

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We hope we didn’t spoil your dinner.

Kareero.com – Career Oriented Website /Personal Branding (sounds like a human resources magician to us)

Sheppard Systems – Online Church Communications Tool (why not spell it Shepherd?)

Givolution – Gift Card Website

www.know-a-pro.com – Website for connecting people with services

fAIRhenheit – new technology for central heating and air conditioning systems (misspelling and case sensitive weirdness included at one low price!)

EcoCool – First Stage of an Air Conditioner Motor

Frescomfort -Second Stage of an Air Conditioner Motor (thank God it stops here and there is not a third or fourth stage)

Health eJourney – medical tourism website (an “e” name”? Helloooooo 1990′s!)

Manĝaĵo – 100% Organic Fast Casual Californian Restaurant (this one is a classic….. it’s Esperanto……Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?)

We also noticed…

• The same peple are “winning” over and over which implies that the “crowd” is more like a small informal gathering.
• The crowd is getting asking questions and not getting answers
• The economics don’t add up. The company keeps $36 of the $99 it charges for a naming job and they are not breaking any volume records. Case in point. As of today, they have two, count ‘em two, naming jobs in the queue. The investors who ponied up $3,000,000 for the parent company probably want a little more bang for their $3,000,000 bucks.

Namethis.com is the poser-child for you get what you pay for…in this case, namedreck, and is proof that crowdsourcing in many cases sounds better than it actually is in practice. NameThis, we are putting you in the deadpool.

For names that don’t suck at any price, we recommend that you use a professional.