Huluballoo

NBC Universal and News Corp. announced a name Thursday for their web video joint venture: Hulu.

The name is the latest in a long line of copycat names--Google and Yahoo got there first--that are short, more or less meaningless, and distinguished by long-u vowel sounds (a k a Oo, baby, baby). See Squidoo, Doostang, Boompa, Qoosah, etc. etc. etc. (For even more Baby Talk 2.0 names, see this L.A. Times story.)

In a "Hulu hello" posted on Hulu.com, CEO Jason Kilar (formerly of Amazon) explained the name choice:

Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world's premier content when, where and how you want it.

Translation: We were able to buy the domain.

Kilar may think "Hulu" is an empty-vessel name, but in fact it's the Hawaiian word for:

1. Feather, hair

2. Esteemed, choice; esteemed older relative, as of parents' or grandparents' generations

Hulu hipa is sheep fleece and huluhulu is body hair.

Hawaiian is spoken in Hawaii, which, last time I checked, was still in the United States.

Elsewhere, hulu means "butt" (of, say, a gun) in the Malay and Indonesian languages. It means "cease and desist" in Swahili. (I am not making this up.)

But my favorite bit of disambiguation comes from Broadcasting & Cable, which said:

The new Hulu is not to be confused with the Swedish technology company, Hulu, which creates WiMAX applications for, among other things, the kind of streaming video the other Hulu plans to do.

All right, then! If it's not to be confused, then we are not confused.

P.S. The Swedish Hulu, which was founded in 2004, is an acronym of Hyper Urban Level User. So they say. 

(Hat tip to MJF.)

Update: William Lozito at NameWire notes: "When written in Latin script (the alternative is Arabic), the Azeri word for "peach" is hülü." Azeri is the official language of Azerbaijan.   

Comments

[Jessica]

Hoo-boy, I don't even know where to begin with this one. The tea leaves suggest the eternal clash between the naming consultants and the trademark attorneys, because seriously? That Swedish company? Sure, nothing to see there, no how, no way, even though a cursory search reveals they may have done business with US companies. Cease and desist indeed! I may have to delve deeper on the trademark front; meanwhile, here are other thoughts: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/29/hulu-translates-to-cease-and-desist-in-swahili-oh-the-irony/

[John]

It's a horrible name, and your commentary is spot on. Now they're trying to apply lipstick to pig.

I'd love to know how much money they spent on the naming consultants. BTW, this is exactly the kind of naming brouhaha that gives naming consultants a bad rep. (Whether fairly or not.)

[Nancy Friedman]

John: I don't know whether they used a naming consultant, but I will tell you this: no name developer worth his or her salt will make a final presentation to the client without first getting at least a preliminary trademark review from a trademark lawyer. If the client wants to proceed despite negative findings--well, that's the client's risk.

[Nancy Friedman]

Jessica: I actually wrote this post yesterday afternoon, before TechCrunch published its post. (Yeah, I know, that's what they all say ... but it's true.) And I used the same online dictionary TC used. Still, I should have checked and linked. Thanks for helping me out!

[Wes Phillips]

Disambiguation? Love that word!

[Nancy Friedman]

Wes: I make no claims to originality--I stole "disambiguation" from Wikipedia.

[John]

Nancy, point taken. I assumed that, given the size of the company involved. My bad.

[Bob Cumbow]

It "rhymes with itself"??? As opposed to all those words that don't rhyme with themselves?