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How 10 Iconic Tech Products Got Their Names
lgmac writes "Think Windows Azure is a stupid name? Ever wonder how iPod, BlackBerry and Twitter got their names? Author Tom Wailgum goes inside the process of creating tech product names that are cool but not exclusionary, marketable, and most of all, free of copyright and trademark gotchas. Here's the scoop on ten iconic tech products and how they got their monikers, plus a chat with
the man responsible for naming Azure, BlackBerry, and more. (What's the one he wishes he'd named but didn't? Google.)"
...it involved a lot of pot.
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products. The only saving grace of XP is how terrible Vista was received by the public, so in comparison, XP looked much better. And how interesting this is to me because I remember how terrible XP was in the beginning. Vista is like Windows ME -- everyone will be happier when it goes away, and we'll all love Windows 7, as long as it's different than Vista. Unbind our hands, and open up the possibilities and you'll win us over. Stop fixing things that we like just because some restrictive group wants you to (RIAA, MPAA, FBI, CIA, DOJ...etc), and start fixing things we hate -- like how restrictive everything is in Vista.
Security has little to do with forcing us to click OK every ten seconds, because eventually that repetitive task will just happen without any consideration -- much like how EULA's are click-passed, and how nobody EVAR reads em. If you want to keep us secure, take a page from Linux and open up your OS to public scrutiny so that people can perfect it. What are you afraid of? Seriously. Who cares if we find out that you people at Microsoft haven't done any real work since 1990... we ALREADY KNOW THAT. You just keep repainting the same product and sending it out with a bunch of problems so we will all feel your pain and we will all buy into your anti-virus and special editions... your drive for future product updates. We know that you only borked Vista so that people would love XP... and it worked. We loved you again, but we loved the past MS. People aren't stupid... well at least not THAT stupid.
Although it looks like you think we are, especially because of those insane advertisements you have with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Are you nuts???
We also don't want to lose our life savings from lawsuits. Oh and while you're at it... take a close look at the stock market and remember that WE EMPLOY YOU, so you'd better do what we say MSFT or we'll employ someone else... it's only a matter of time, now that the incentive for free OS use is higher than ever!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
He says before Google, all the search engines were engineering names like WebCrawler, Webfinder, Websearcher, etc.
Apparently he never heard of search engines like AltaVista, Yahoo!, Lycos, etc. Seriously? Names are his business and he doesn't remember any of those?
... to the GIMP devs.
Find a free domain and name your product after it.
Hint: it'll probably be spelt strangely.
If the developers hail from a UNIX background there is no mystery. biff, awk, grep, sed. google and twitter seem tame by comparison.
> ...free of copyright ... gotchas.
A name cannot have any "copyright gotchas" . Names cannot be protected by copyright.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
how could the devs come up with "slashdot" ?
AltSlashdot. Because f'k the beta
As we all know, if you have technology without an interesting name, you can always make an acronym.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Microsoft's Mike Nash announced the name this way: "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore 'Windows 7' just makes sense."
So, has anyone actually figured out exactly what the previous 6 versions of Windows were?
This guy's the limit!
I figured that they were tired of hearing about the BSOD, and "Azure screen of death" would at least sound nicer.
Firefox was actually the third name. Its original name was Phoenix (it rose from the ashes of Netscape), but Phoenix Technologies raised a fuss. Then it became Firebird, and the Firebird database team raised a fuss. Then it became Firefox, and Debian didn't like that and called it IceWeasel. Anyone remember the FireSomething plugin that would randomly change the name.
That's funny, I heard they called him "Windows" because he could frequently be spotted peeping through them.
> Then it became Firefox, and Debian didn't like that and called it IceWeasel.
Debian had no objection whatever to calling it Firefox. Mozilla objected to Debian doing so.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Probably wanted to convey the idea of being in many places at once and making sure what you had to say would be heard, no matter what. Over and over and over again.
Oh, and also annoy the hell out of everyone.
What do you guys think?
What? Wait... this is the microblogging service we're talking about, right?
10 pages of less text than the average "First POSTO!" and non-photoshopped images to boot. This is worse than reading IDLE
A couple decades back there was a German man with his own branding/naming company. A Japanese company, not satisfied with their experience for English speaking markets, called him up and asked him to help out with a new car. Naturally, he inquired as to the project timeline, due dates etc.
Nervously, the Japanese marketer replied that they needed something for the following Monday.
After a few moments pause, the German replied "Dat Soon? eh?"
Later that same year he took a trip to London on business. While eating at a local steakhouse, he asked "what's dis here sauce?"
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I'd like to use this thread to advertise "Douchebag Tech".
We make speakers to fit in windows to face to others in the neighborhood. We make software that writes songs for acoustic guitar the feigns sensitivity. We also provide fancy ear buds for your favorite MP3 music player. And we also provide BMW and Audi dealership coupons for the well-to-do douchebag that can make payments - we all know that really rich people who can pay cash don't buy shit like that!
We, Douchbag Tech, offer your everyday show-off, low value, fancy tech needs.
WTF? No way I'm clicking through that. Not even a fig leaf "print this article"-link there. And for what? A huge picture and three lines of text? Abominable.
The first thing I thought of when I heard about "Windows Azure" was whether mr. placek & co. had ever been to Malta... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Window (I was there last year...it does the word "awesome" justice.)
..the Slashdot naming people did a great job. It speaks to it's reader base.
Indeed, the parent is right.
It wasn't Debian which had any problems with the name "Firefox"; rather, Mozilla's terms of use for the trademarked name "Firefox" did not allow Debian to ship a version of the browser under that name with patches apply unless they'd received an OK from Mozilla first.
Debian, naturally, was not able and willing to allow an outside party to have that kind of influence on the project; but Mozilla wasn't willing to budge on this, either, so therefore, Debian had to change the name (thereby avoiding the whole trademark issue altogether).
Maybe. But who's laughing now :)
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
I read Wordcraft recently, and was highly entertained. It talks about the process of naming and follows a few names in detail, including BlackBerry and a few others.
I thought the Thinkpad was named after IBM decades old corporate slogan, which is THINK.
Yes, what you said is funny, but seriously now I had to pitch using a free image suite to a customer who was kinda penny-pinching, and when I suggested that we "bring out the GIMP" the customer started laughing at me, and they became somewhat violent. I ducked the coffee she threw at me, but only after I explained (while dodging numerous other desk utensils) that GIMP stood for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" did the abuse dwindle.
And then she said, "What the hell does a GNU have to do with anything? You people are all fucking crazy!! ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!" And she had a coronary and passed out from too much bacon and eggs... cholesterol rich, fatty foods, apparently add up over the years.
Why couldn't they call it something like "Expensive Looking Free Graphics Suite" so like people could present it and be cheered for mentioning the product? The customer might have invited me to join her for a cup of coffee instead of hurl the damn thing at me. Although that tends to be reduced to "ELFGS" which sounds equally as annoying.
Let's have a name-fork of the project! I vote for the name "Rez". That way, I could say, "MRS. Customer, we have just what you need in the Rez project, a free graphics utility. I'm not sure what this GIMP project is you keep balking at, but the last guy who brought up that project is a fool. Go with our project instead and we'll use Rez. It sounds cooler."
Of course I'm joking around a little but apart from my exaggeration, this was the level of irritation expressed by said customer in regards to the GIMP moniker.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Who cares if we find out that you people at Microsoft haven't done any real work since 1990... we ALREADY KNOW THAT.
Nah, their consumer OSes have seen the addition of memory protection. Beore then, Microsoft did some real doesn't-work.
I am surprised that Red Hat had nothing to do with White Hat and Black Hat Hackers...I always assumed Red Hat was an option C; Not necessarily good, and not necessarily evil.
What I wanna know is why the idiot(s) who came up with this stinker of a name - Pacific Telesis Group - for Pacific Bell's holding company were able to not only keep their jobs but make out like bandits, to the tune of three quarters of a million dollars. That, of course, does not include the expense of re-signing the corporate vehicle fleet, changing stationery, and the like. Guess who got to foot the whole bill? (Forget about GOVERNMENT taxes: we're being "taxed" far worse as consumers by corporate excess and stupidity.)
There's just as much stupidity in evidence in product and DBA names as there is genius; for every brilliant one there's a hundred mediocre ones and more than a few really bad ones. Logo design suffers and benefits about the same. I think this story would have been far more enlightening if it had focused on the boneheaded rather than the brilliant.
even considering the subject matter. It covers that wikipedia is wiki + encyclopedia, but offers nothing on how wikis got their name (a hawaiian bus system), it just says that android was made by a company named Android, and says that OSX is the 10th mac os, without even bothering to look into the cat names at all. The only one with an actual interesting answer was Red Hat.
get online news websites to understand how the scrollbars work in a web browser, instead of breaking one 'page' into a dozen small ones that, instead of the whole article loading at once, and then being able to scroll smoothly, instead of having to click next, next, next, and have frustrating pauses while trying to read.
After I read the first 'bit' and realized Id have to click, wait, click, wait to read the rest, I just closed the tab instead of bothering.
Occasionally on sites like that there is a 'printable version' that gives the whole article as one, but lately it seems to just give a 'printable version' of that one bit of the story. /. editors - lets not encourage these sites by linking to them and giving them the ad traffic.
The article says that Firefox was the browser's second name, but during development Firebird was known as Phoenix. I forget what the reason for the first change was, but they're definitely on their third name.
Really I can't see whats wrong with Vista, I use the 64-Bit version and it runs happily on my computer; I know this sounds hard to believe but I haven't had any serious issues, the worst thing that has happened is my net dying and just using a simple winsock reset but apart from that its been fine. What am I missing thats such a problem?
I'd have to say, the ones who saw him peeping called him Windows and the ones who didn't called him Microsoft.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You need someone to be willing to purchase something, before you can sell it. $15bil today is $1mil tomorrow. I still wouldn't sneeze at $1mil, but in a world where $15bil can erode to $1mil, that $1mil is gonna be gone pretty quick.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I am sure the name "wiki' predates any Hawaiin bus system. (My mother had an Auntie Wiki, thpugh it was by marrige only, I can't claim any Maori ancestry)
In 1840 the tribal chiefs of Aoteoroa signed the Treaty of with the British crown. The Sovereign at that time was Queen Victoria, who the Maori refered to as Wikitoria. That name became very popular for girls, many of whom were nicknamed "Wiki"
Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, what was Bill Gates thinking? When you hear Micro + Soft what is the first thing that comes to your (dirty) mind? Maybe it's time to rename the company to MacroHard or TurgidBlimb or RibbedGiant etc.
Panasonic (Originally Matsushita) actually got the name of their company from a review of one of their speaker systems. The article said that they had great "all around sound." All around translates to pana and sound translates to sound.
Epson (Originally Seiko) made a small printer named the EP-101 which was the worlds first compact, lightweight digital printer. My grandfather found large demand in it in the U.S. so they needed to create a new name to use(Seiko is a watch corp in the US). He told them the story about how Panasonic came about the name and left on a flight back stateside.
When he got back, he had a message waiting already and they told him that they were naming it Epson. He told them that is a horrible idea because people would confuse it with epsom salt. They told him it was his fault because it was his idea and explained that they were naming it based on their first product sale like panasonic did. So the name comes from "son of EP" to the more consumer friendly Epson.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Add your naming nominations here (tech or otherwise):
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
The article hardly explores anything. Epic fail.
The name of Windows doesn't make a bit of difference. They could have called Windows XP "Windows Turd" If it works, it works, and people will use it. Vista doesn't work, therefore they decided to create Windows Turd, and call it Vista.
Quoth Wikipedia:
WikiWikiWeb was the first site to be called a wiki. Ward Cunningham started developing WikiWikiWeb in 1994, and installed it on the Internet domain c2.com on March 25, 1995. It was named by Cunningham, who remembered a Honolulu International Airport counter employee telling him to take the "Wiki Wiki" shuttle bus that runs between the airport's terminals. According to Cunningham, "I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for 'quick' and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web."
Xtree Xtree, Read all about it.
Now that was a good product name. Xtree History
The code name for the project was "Blue." I guess "Azure" sounded more sophisticated.
How much did MS pay for someone to come up with that?
was always Soroc Technology, which made great terminals back in the '70s. The name came from a rearrangement of the beer brand Coors, and their logo looked like the top of a beer can.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/28/whence-wii/
There is even a good podcast that goes along with the creation of this strip...
It couldn't have been too hard, Microsoft clearly just stole "Azure" from me: http://web.vee.net/projects/azure/
Hmph.
/Mike
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
It seems that these days tech names don't have to mean anything and, in fact, the more meaningless the better; if you make up a new word you can be sure that searches for it will only return sites relevent to your product. I miss the old days where tech names were generally meaningful, if a bit obscure, but there were some noteable exceptions that sounded meaningful but weren't. A couple that spring to mind are KERMIT (an old BBS file transfer protocol) which had several theories about what it was an acronym for before its creator finally admitted he just named it after the muppet and TWAIN (scanner data protocol) which stands for 'Technology Without An Interesting Name'.
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I have a product that switches a video CODEC between multiple networks of different security classifications. Anybody have any ideas for a good name?