Back to the Backward Brand Names

It’s been a few years since I last looked at backward brand names—or ananyms*, as they’re sometimes called. Here’s a brief update on the state of the sdnarb.

*

Mik Cire is a menswear label launched by Los Angeles designer Eric Kim in February 2010. The brand name is “Eric Kim” spelled backward. (Via You Look Fab, which called the Mik Cire collection “edgy,” fashion-speak for “unlikely to catch on within the next ten years.”)

*

Evitavonni—“innovative” spelled backward—is a UK-based interior-design firm that “offers a world of quiet elegance, subtle and ageless, but with a contemporary edge.” (Again with the edge!) The logo reinforces the backward concept.

 

 

John McGarvey, a copywriter in the UK, alerted me to a post he’d written about Evitavonni. He makes a reasonable point:

I’d love to know what process the company went through before coming up with that particular name. Because I’m struggling to see how backwards innovation can be a good thing. … To me, writing a word backwards implies the opposite meaning. So by that token, Evitavonni suggests a business that’s old-fashioned, change-resistant and set it its ways. Doesn’t it?

On the other hand, “Evitavonni” has an Italianesque quality that’s suitable for upscale home furnishings. And it had me singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your tolerance for (a) Broadway musicals and (b) my singing.

(In case you were wondering, it's backward—and toward and upward and forward—in the US. British English adds an “s” to all those words. So both John and I are correct.)

*

Neerg started following me on Twitter, then unfollowed me after I DMd a friendly query about the name’s pronunciation. Well, then. The company, which launched in Venice, California, in 2010, prefers to spell its name all lower case—neerg—and doesn’t provide pronunciation tips: “near gee”? “neerj”? “neergue,” with a hard-g ending? But I do know how the name came about.

See the reflection? Yes, “neerg” is “green” spelled backward; the company is “an ecommerce store and community where producers of all sizes of green goods sell directly to consumers.”

As with Evitavonni, there’s a bit of a logical problem here: if it’s backward green, doesn’t that mean it stands for environmental waste and despoilment? Hmm. In any event, you may be interested to know that neerg organizes its offerings into “categreens.” Cate Greens? No, “green categories.”

Shouldn’t that be cateneergs?

Read my 2007 post on backward brand names.

Read Baby Name Wizard’s master list of backward baby names (for advanced babies, of course).

___

* From the OED: “loosely formed on Greek ἀνά back + ὄνυμα, ὄνομα name, which properly gives anonymn. (pre-occupied by another meaning).”

Comments

[Mark Gunnion]

Does the little bakery in the town of Yreka (pronounced "why-reeka"), California, count? You know, the Yreka Bakery?

[Karen]

I was sure that Evitavonni was going to turn out to be a competitor of Evite!

[Licia]

I'm Italian and to me Evitavonni sounds quite Finnish.

[JT Sheerin]

Naming your company backwards is just plain diputs

[Nancy Davis Kho]

Neergs makes me think of nerds, not green. Categreens makes me think I woke up in a country with a language not my own. Most people just don't want to work that hard at learning to speak "Clever."

Nice that they unfollowed you, that's exactly how you want to leverage your social media presence - by not listening to people!

And finally, thanks for the backward/backwards explanation. I have never known which was right. Because my grandparents are Brits, I'm going to continue to say it whichever way I like.

[The Name Inspector]

Another one is Xobni, the Outlook plugin for searching your email and managing your contacts.

[Nancy Friedman]

@Name Inspector: I first took note of Xobni back in 2007--
http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2007/12/naming-trends-o.html -- but you're right: I've never included it in a post devoted to ananyms.