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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.)"
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.
> 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.
A team of namers is given the parameters of the project -
product / company type
target audience
what sort of feeling the name should convey
the regions that the name will be used in
Namers then go off on their own and compose massive lists of names. I've seen the names run the gamut from simple mashups of common words to mashups of greek / latin roots to words based on etymological research of the original target "feeling" words. Then the namers get together and reduce the list down to a set of finalists before presenting them for client review.
Sometimes it takes a few iterations... Particularly if the objective is to get a globally trademarkable word that won't be misinterpreted as meaning anything offensive in another country.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
it was InfoGear, who were later acquired by cisco, who later used the same trademark to launch another, unrelated product under the linksys brand. There's a whole blurb about it on the iPhone's wikipedia article. While I never bought any of the products in question, they all seem to have been available from the usual channels at their time of launch.
Pun fail.
It's pronounced like ""wuster"".