Fritinancy

Naming Trends of 2008

Given everything else that made headlines in 2008—the Beijing Olympic Games, a financial meltdown, some sort of election—you may not have been paying close attention to brand names. Not to worry: that's what I'm here for. Here's my take on MMVIII in nomenclature.

1. RealWords™ make a comeback. After all the silliness of early Web 2.0 names—Meebo, Thoof, Doostang, Xobni, and the rest—Web 2.0 businesses came abruptly down to earth in 2008. Dozens of them embraced not just single real words but double-barreled ones:  Consider Tripwolf (a travel site), RareShare (for people with rare diseases), Booksprouts (a social network for book groups), Snackfeed (a video recommendation site), FriendFeed (a news feed aggregator), SocialThing (another news feed aggregator), BlackBird (a browser that targets the African-American community), Glassdoor (bringing workplace conditions and salaries to light), and RepairPal (auto maintenance). Compound names—one from Column A, one from Column B—are often the fallback option of the do-it-yourselfer with limited resources; they're also what you tend to get when you consult an online name generator. Done well, they can be evocative and memorable. (I happen to like Glassdoor and RareShare.) But lazy compounds don't advance a brand story. "Thing" is an empty noun that communicates nothing about a brand benefit. And how many "-feed" names can we accept before they blur together?

2. Kree8tivity continues with domain extensions. I touched on this trend briefly in my mid-year trend report. Since then I've noticed a spate of new businesses that incorporate country domains into their names—including .ly, the extension for Libya, a country that until recently was terra non grata in the United States. Good thing that's changed, because -ly is a handy adverb-maker. For example: the URL shorteners Bit.ly and Ow.ly. (Dot-com domains ending in -ly also proved popular: see Twingly, Estately, Quotably, Startuply [formerly Jowba], and Slantly.) North Americans colonized other parts of the globe besides Libya for their domain extensions: I spotted Moccas.in (India), Lulla.by (Belarus; apparently defunct or pending), Looky.lu (Luxembourg; ditto), and Is.gd (Grenada).

3. The color purple. Plums continued to be the namer's low-hanging fruit: we saw the spread of PlumChoice tech support (founded in 2001) and Plum Organics baby food (founded in 2005). Nearby on the color wheel was a new beverage made with purplish fruits and called simply Purple.  (You can buy it at 7-Eleven.) Purple has traditionally signified royalty; in this year of blue states overtaking red states, the color purple took on new meaning as a democratic mashup. It was an important hue in fashion, too. (UPDATE: Via Murketing, I've learned about Purple Stuff, a "pro-relaxation and calming elixir"; like Purple, it's sold at 7-Eleven. There's no explanation on the Purple Stuff site of how the brand got its name, but "purple stuff" is street slang for a drink made from codeine cough syrup and soda, usually Sprite.)

4. Numerology becomes cool. All-numeric domain names have increased in popularity, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Speculators, and even a few legitimate business developers, were worried about a perceived scarcity of real-word names (unfounded; see #1, above) and willing to spend a lot of digits—more than $300,000 in one instance—to buy cryptic domains such as 88.com (a piano site?). My question: now that they own the domains, how are they going to turn them into meaningful, viable brands?

5. Phones acquire language. Sure, you can still buy a Nokia N95 or an Ericsson W810i. But the bigger news this year was mobile phone makers' embrace of short, vivid words in their nomenclature. From Samsung: the Instinct, Gravity, Beat, Blast, Gleam, Juke, and Rant. (For more on the Rant, see my Bad Brand Names post, published yesterday.) From LG: the Decor, Dare, Rumor, Swift, Wave, and Flare. From Research in Motion: the BlackBerry Storm and Bold. In early December, Motorola bucked the action-hero-vocabulary trend and introduced the contemplative Aura, said to be "inspired by luxury watches and handcrafted design." It'll cost $2,000. Recession? What recession?

Read my post on naming trends of 2007.

Have a swell New Year's Eve and an auspicious start to 2009. See you next week. Or sooner, if I just can't help myself.

I'm Monumentous in Canada

Well, monumentous-ish. Reporter Misty Harris of the Canwest News Service quotes me in her article about the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year competition:

Sharing that finger-on-the-pulse quality is "staycation" (a vacation that doesn't involve travel), which has been nominated as the ADS's Word of the Year by professional wordsmith Nancy Friedman. She also likes "monumentous," which was broadly deployed in reference to the Obama phenomenon.

"It seemed to be used by people who had no idea they were making up a word," says Friedman, founder of Wordworking.com. "It was like there were no words in the dictionary adequate to describe what was going on."

The article was published yesterday in the Calgary Herald and its sister publications in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Saskatoon, and Nanaimo. (Do they observe NaNoWriMo in Nanaimo? I certainly hope so.)

Read more about staycation and monumentous.

Bad Brand Names: Final 2008 Edition

There's just enough time left on the calendar to acknowledge (and mock) this year's notable naming misfires. Tomorrow: a look at brand-naming trends of 2008.

XSensible. When you sell unapologetically orthopedic-looking "comfort" shoes (see photo, left), it's redundant and self-defeating to brand them "sensible." After all, for generations of shoppers, the phrase "sensible shoes" has meant only one thing: "Why, yes, I have taken a vow of celibacy!" Granted, XSensible is a Dutch company, and it's possible that "sensible" may have different associations over there, perhaps something closer to Jane Austen's "sensibility"—deep emotional feeling, as opposed to left-brain "sense." But not in the United States. The "X" in the brand name, I'm guessing, has to do with the product's chief benefit—stretch leather uppers—and may represent a pun on "extensible." The only thing worse than sensible shoes is a pun on "sensible shoes."  (Photograph of the XSensible "Florida": Footwear Etc.)

Samsung Rant. Definition of rant: "a wild, incoherent, emotional articulation"; "pompous or pretentious talk";  "harangue"; "loud, bombastic declaration."  As if there aren't enough cellphone goofuses in public spaces already. Seriously, Samsung: do you really need to encourage this? (More on mobile-phone naming trends tomorrow.)

Ndoi.  Casual shoemaker Tsubo (the brand name supposedly means "pressure point" in Japanese) makes a decent product and sometimes comes up with decent names. The Tsubo Acrea is the most comfortable high heel on the planet, and its name is pronounceable, elegant, and appropriate: acr- suggests height. But with "Ndoi," a "bowling shoe-inspired" men's casual shoe, I fear someone in the Tsubo creative department hit the sake bottle a little too heavily. It's unpronounceable and (as far as I can tell) meaning-free. And the Ndoi isn't alone: other Tsubo men's styles include the Utan, the Focas, the Warra, and the Korph. They all sound like Klingon to me. (I could have devoted this entire post to peculiar shoe names; be grateful that I'm limiting my selection to XSensible and Ndoi.)

bumGenius. I love this company's story and tagline: "Cloth diapering made easy." I applaud its efforts to change perceptions about the "disposability" of diapers. (Full disclosure: In my health-journalist days, I wrote several articles about the hazards—to the environment and to public and private health—of disposables.) I like that the company was started by women and is based in the U.S. (Colorado). And I sort of get where they're going with the name: a little shock, a little flattery ("You're a genius!"). Trouble is, although some Americans are aware the "bum" is slang for "derriere" in the U.K., most are not. I think many consumers will be puzzled that a diaper company has named itself after a brilliant yet unstable out-of-work guy instead of, you know, conveying some sort of benefit. And what's with that dumb lower-case "b"?  

Grāpple. Basic naming rule: If you have to rely on diacritical marks like the macron over the a to clarify pronunciation, your brand name isn't working. Additional hints ("Say Grape-L") only make you seem more desperate. Then there's the bigger question: Does the world really need an apple that tastes like a grape? I'm still grappling with that one.

Honda Fit. Loath as I am to add to automakers' grief in this year of living indebtedly, I am nevertheless compelled to point out the weirdness of this choice. Yes, I suppose it could mean "fit as a fiddle." But can you blame me for thinking "Oh, there goes the Honda Epilepsy—in fits and starts as usual!" every time I see one? Worse still is the brand's tagline: "The Fit Is Go!" Reviewer Joe Wiesenfelder of Cars.com observed in May of this year: "Maybe I'm a pedantic editorial type, but it seems to me that a word is missing. 'The Fit is a go' would have worked in 2007, but it seems a foregone conclusion now." As a head-scratcher, that slogan is right up there with Fiat's "You Are. We Car," from 2007. (Note: The Fit was introduced in the United States in 2007, but it was completely redesigned and given a big marketing push in September of this year.)*

Bonus! The questionable name that's most likely to be co-opted by the adult film industry: the Large Hadron Collider, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008.

Other bad brand names reviewed here this year: Cuil (which according to a recent TechCrunch post is wading into the dead pool), Pussy (a "premium energy drink"), Vergina (a beer from Greece), FullChoke (men's cologne), We Olive (an olive oil store), GOOP (Gwyneth Paltrow's website), YOOX (an upscale e-tailer), and Theality (maternity fashion).

Want a second opinion? Check out Minneapolis naming agency Pollywog Inc.'s best and worst brand names of 2008. I've written about two of the Pollywog picks myself: Sue magazine and the Volkswagen Tiguan.

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* For much more about car names, especially American car names, read this blog post by Michael Bérubé. The comments are full of inspired suggestions for new names: If there's a Ford Probe, why can't there be a Chrysler Catheter? (Hat tip: Orange.) For my money, the weirdest car name ever remains the (actual) Great Wall Wingle,

American Dialect Society's Word of the Year: Change Takes the Lead!

Early nominations have been posted for the last and arguably most democratic of the U.S. WOTY contests. "Change" currently has the lead, with other words related to politics or the economy filling out the rest of the top ten.

Public nominations are still being accepted; e-mail your choice to woty@americandialect.org. The final vote will be held Jan. 9 during the American Dialect Society's annual meeting at the San Francisco Hilton. I'll be there; will you?

Where Did They Get That Name?

My latest article for Visual Thesaurus, "Where Did They Get That Name?", is now online. In it I divulge the secret stories behind eight brand names. I hope Santa gave you a VT subscription, or you gave one to yourself, because that's the only way you'll get access to the whole thing. Alternatively, you could dig into the Fritinancy archives to read many of the stories, including those for Kindle, Slinky, and Acne Jeans.

Here's one name story I haven't written about previously:

J.P. Tod's. This Italian luxury leather-goods company was named after its founding family until the 1970s, when scion Diego Della Valle decided to rebrand it. He flipped through the Boston telephone directory and landed on J.P. Tod, which had the right Anglo sound and a slightly quirky spelling that made it distinctive.

One more plug: Visual Thesaurus is a terrific resource for writers, teachers, and marketing professionals. An individual online subscription is just $19.95 a year, with a 14-day free trial; additional subscribers on your account are just $10 a year. Go! Subscribe! Read!

 

Word of the Week: Thundersnow

Thundersnow: An unusual winter thunderstorm accompanied by snow instead of rain. (Sometimes spelled thunder snow.)

Thundersnow is most likely to occur in a coastal area, because storms can form over the comparatively warm ocean or lake water and then move inland, where they encounter much colder weather. That's what happened earlier this month when a storm dropped six to nine inches of snow on the Puget Sound area. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported on Dec. 18:

Thursday's storm started off with a bang as two bands of air barreled across the region from opposite directions and collided, producing a rare combination of thunder and lightning, with driving snow that quickly whited-out much of the city.

According to David Schultz, formerly a meteorologist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, and now a professor in Helsinki, only 0.07 percent of recorded snowstorms are associated with thunder. Part of the problem lies in documentation:

Shultz points out that heavy snow has a way of obscuring sound and light — the telltale signs of a thundersnow.

"Where you might hear a regular thunderstorm from four to five miles away, you may not hear or see a thundersnow from a mile away," he said.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in much of coastal California, thunderstorms are exceedingly rare at any time of year; our summers and autumns are dry. I'm always skeptical when I see movies set in San Francisco or Los Angeles in which thunder and lightning are added for dramatic effect.

Q + A = X(mas)

I don't celebrate Christmas, but I'm in favor of seasonal merriment. Here are a few options for the too-old-for-Legos crowd:

1. The Tensor explains it all: As in previous years, the Tensor answers all the unanswered questions from Slate's Explainer column. And not a moment too soon, because you wouldn't want to end the year without solving conundrums like this one:

Q:  How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?

A:  Early manicures.

(Of course I'd pick that one. I have a thing for man-words.)

2. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll presents his 28th annual Christmas Quiz. It's as challenging as ever, but allow me to say that if you've been using Fritinancy as directed, you'll know the answer to Question No. 7. (All the answers will be published in Jon's Friday column on SFGate.com.)

3. Finally, in the spirit of those Mac vs. PC commercials, here's Christmas vs. Chanukah. 

I'm off to the movies. See you Monday.

 

Geoffrey Nunberg's Word of the Year

Linguist and "Fresh Air" commentator Geoffrey Nunberg casts his vote:

I prefer to go with those who look for a word that encapsulates some major story of the year, particularly in a year as epochal as this one. The people at Merriam Webster chose bailout, the word which got the biggest spike in lookups on the dictionary's web site (my guess is that it's also the word that figured most prominently the captions of New Yorker cartoons, which is a more suggestive indicator). And you could certainly make an argument for change or post-racial or collateral debt obligation. But none of those is particularly interesting as a word. If it were up to me, I'd fasten on the brief and curious resurgence of Joe.

Nunberg isn't alone: earlier this month, Laura Wattenberg at Baby Name Wizard picked "Joe" as the name of the year. (I wrote about that announcement here.)

"Joe" has a long, rich history as a stand-in for the average American guy:

The generic Joe Blow made his first appearance in the 1920's along with his aliases Joe Bloggs and Joe Zilch, to be joined later by Joe Schmo from Kokomo. And by the thirties Joe had replaced John and Jack as a generic word for a chap or a fellow, as in a good Joe or a regular Joe.

There's lots more. Listen to Nunberg's radio essay or read it (with footnotes that didn't make it onto the air). I laughed out loud at the last line.

Wishing You a Tense Christmas!

From Savage Chickens, your daily poultry chuckle, by way of Language Log.

Characters

I've been reading Giovanni Rodriguez's series of posts, "Advertising with Character," on his blog, The Hubbub, and encourage you to do so, too. Be sure to start at the beginning, with the prologue, which looks at the character of Joe the Plumber from the recent presidential campaign and compares him with—I can't believe I hadn't thought of this myself—Josephine the Plumber, the spokescharacter for Procter & Gamble's Comet cleanser, introduced in the late 1960s.

Giovanni's thesis:

--the most successful, memorable characters represent universal truths.  They are not just stereotypes (though many are).  The best ones are archetypes.

--as archetypes, they enable the storyteller to connect profoundly with the audience in ways that other characters cannot. Example:  the recurring character of Jack Falstaff, who appears -- always as himself --  in several of Shakespeare's plays.

--as archetypes, they enable the storyteller to extend the value of their work beyond a single unit of entertainment.  

Great stuff, and I look forward to reading the remaining installments.

Coincidentally, I've been working for weeks on an advertising-character post myself. It's for a regional brand that probably didn't make Giovanni's list; I hope to post it sometime in January.

Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this advertising character, born in Lithuania and temporarily residing on a shelf at EuroMix*, my neighborhood source for all manner of ex-Soviet Bloc comestibles—your head cheese, your ballerina-themed chocolate boxes, your kasha-in-a-tube. (OK, I made up the last one, but it's not far from reality.) The clerks speak about twelve words of English between them, and my Russian vocabulary is about the same size, so I couldn't interview them about this brand. Perhaps it speaks for itself:

 

The side panels have text in several languages, but nowhere could I find an identity for this bizarre Jay Leno-chinned cartoon. I've decided to call him Psycho Puff Daddy Warbucks.

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* From the website: "Your Senses will Conjure up images reminisent of Europe, Russia, Germany, Israel, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Switzerland, Norway, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Croatia, Poland, Armenia, Georgia, Spain, and Austria!!!"