How to avoid an invented name trainwreck.

Names should make people smile instead of scratch their head. Especially invented names, which are often mangled gobbldygook. Start-ups and old-school naming firms fall in love with invented names for three reasons: 1) They sail through trademarking; 2) the domain names are always available; 3) they want the ego boost of coining a word. It's the easy way out. But the results are usually disastrous. Most invented names are forced and unnatural sounding. Some of our favorite offenders: Doostang, Motiva, Ziizoo, Fragranza, Advogato, Mathnasium, and our #1 head-scratcher, Xobni. Eat My Words first heard about Xobni when one of their investors wisely suggested we rename them. This internet start-up fails on so many levels: It's difficult to spell, impossible to pronounce, and evocative of absolutely nothing. What is Xobni? It's inbox spelled backwards. Cute to the founders. Dumbfounding to customers. If you have to explain a name to someone, it's a bad name. And if there is a hidden meaning in your name, make it a bonus instead of a brain grinder. For instance, our friends created a cool do-it-yourself ringtone software named DJ Nitrogen. Great name. What's even better is that NITROGEN is an anagram for RINGTONE. Super cool and fun to know. But the name doesn't depend on people "getting" the hidden meaning. For more on the subject of invented website names (and a few more jabs at Xobni), read "How Do You Tell a Web Name From a Typo?" in the Washington Post and David Pouge's "The Dr. Seuss Jumble: Naming Web Sites" from The New York Times. 

Comments

[Matt Brezina]

Awesome, we are the #1 head scratcher! It is funny how much press we've gotten just because of our name.

The pronunciation is still hard for me, but the spelling is easy once you know the etymology, and you never forget the etymology once you've been told once.

We'll see how it works out for us. Wish us luck!

Cheers,
Matt
Co-founder/Xobni

[Robert Einspruch]

I feel like we have arrived! For the record, ziizoo is the Anglicization of a Dutch phrase. I have yet to see a company fail because of their name - usually start-ups fail because of under-funding, flawed business model, or failure to execute the technology/marketing strategy.

It seems like the blogosphere is more concerned with names than actual users are (or at least our users are). Be sure to tell Steve Jobs how stupid "Apple" sounds - I think personaldesktopandlaptopcomputercompany.com sounds a lot better ;-)

Robert Einspruch
Founder, ziizoo.com

[Robert Einspruch]

Wow - I guess we have been officially discovered. I haven't heard of too many start-ups failing because of odd names. It seems like those in the blogosphere care more than users do (or at least more than our users do!). I bet Steve Jobs is probably wondering if the link between the word "Apple" and "hip, easy-to-use, elegant consumer electronic devices" is clear enough ;-)

Robert Einspruch
Founder, ziizoo.com