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.)"

Comments

His explanation of Google's name is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:I bet...

[paeanblack]

Naming is actually a really big business and is usually a pretty painful process. I know someone that was a professional namer that worked for a big branding house for a while. The time they spent coming up with names was pretty incredible.

F/OSS, in general, fails miserably here. "Linpus Lite" on the EEE PCs? WTF?

The name should not matter, but in reality, it does. Unfortunately, OSS projects seem to only accept a rebranding under threats of legal action.

Re:MSFT

[JaredOfEuropa]

Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products.

Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame. Today, if the company name would be still available, no one in their right mind would give their software firm a name like that, even freelancing consultants wouldn't be so silly as to pick that as their firm's name. But they rose to greatness (in influence and dollars if not reputation for quality), and thus the name lost its lameness and became associated with an extremely succesful tech company.