David Pogue, in the NY Times:
These are all actual Web sites that have hit the Web in the last year or so: Doostang. Wufoo. Bliin. Thoof. Bebo. Meebo. Meemo. Kudit. Raketu. Etelos. Iyogi. Oyogi. Qoop. Fark. Kijiji. Zixxo. Zoogmo.
And these are names coughed up the Domain and Company Name Ideas Generator:
Cojigo. Roombee. Kwiboo. Trundu. Oobox. Ceelox. Myndo. Ababoo. Vible. Yambo. Eizu. Twimba. Yanoodle.
So… are startups today really using a randomizing algorithm to poot forth their brand identities? Or are humans sitting around board room tables coming up with names that only end up sounding randomly generated? Either way, these name forms are only memorable when they’re alone in the field, like Google. When there are dozens of them, all recognizability is lost.
Of course, “google” isn’t a completely made-up word, it at least sounds like a real one :)
But point taken. (and, for some odd reason, I love the sound of “Kwiboo” – I might have to go register it ;)
Heard a funny story recently about how the name “Google” came to be. Either Larry or Sergei came up with the idea to name the company after a googol. One of their office workers was sitting at a terminal, and when they came up with the name, they said “Register that domain!” The worker didn’t know how to spell googol and so entered his misspelled version into the registrar as google. They liked the typo enough to keep it. So one of the world’s most powerful companies is named on a typo.
The word Raketu (pronounce ra-ke-tu) is a declension form of the Czech word “rocketâ€. The sound of the word is also similar to pronunciation of the word “rocket†in Russian and Japanese. Please note that the word Raketu is NOT a mambo jumbo word. We chose this name not only because the visionary behind Raketu, G. Parker, is an astrophysicist, but also Raketu software will take communications and media the way we know it to another level.
Sincerely
The Raketu Team
Thanks for clarifying that, Raketu – cool to know!
Darn, it’s already a company ;)
Love their motto, tho’ – “Because We Can”
Thanks for posting this link. Pogue had some interesting commentary on the issue. I wanted to point out, however, that Etelos has been around for almost nine years now. See the whole story here: http://www.etelos.com/dm/article.espx?show=13292.
kwiboo was indeed from a web2 name generator
see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwiboo
and : http://www.kwiboo.com/