Fritinancy

Names in the News: Georgi & Willow

Goodwill Industries, known for its job-training programs and bare-bones thrift stores, is trying something new: a trendy, one-of-a-kind boutique in San Anselmo (Marin County). But don’t look for a Goodwill sign on the storefront: the shop will be called Georgi & Willow.

The new store will sell men’s and women’s clothing and housewares “curated” (vogue word alert!) from other Goodwill stores in the Bay Area. A message on an interior wall will let shoppers in on the store’s connection to the parent organization.

Of course, the initials of “Georgi & Willow” are another clue. But there’s more to the name story, according to the San Anselmo-Fairfax Patch:

The boutique’s title [sic] combines the names of two fictional Marin County women. … Organizers have developed an elaborate Georgi and Willow backstory, with details including how the two characters met - they became friends at a young age and went to Sir Francis Drake High School.

The Georgi & Willow Twitter profile reveals a little more about the characters (punctuation sic):

Georgi is sophisticated, well-traveled, with a dressy personal style while Willow is a natural, practical, trail lover!

The boutique concept is new, but this isn’t Goodwill’s first foray into creative naming. Back in 2007, I wrote about William Good, a joint venture between Goodwill and Nick Graham, founder of the men’s-underwear company Joe Boxer. That collaboration—which didn’t involve brick-and-mortar stores—seems to have quietly dissolved.

The Georgi & Willow name recycles a well-worn retail and fashion trend: the “X&Y” formula. I wrote about many of those compound names—Judith & Charles, Elizabeth & James, Rag & Bone, Soia & Kyo, et al.—in a May 2010 post.

In a video on the San Anselmo-Fairfax Patch site, Georgi & Willow brand director Tim Murray tells the story behind the name. 

Georgi is the glossy, sophisticated, well-traveled, beautiful woman who, frankly, other women are a little jealous of from afar, but when they meet her she's so personal [sic] she makes them feel like they're the only person in the room and they really come to lover her. She's a real people person. She cares very much about giving people second chances, which is why she is supporting the local Goodwill chapter through George & Willow. 

Willow, on the other hand, is that very practical, earthy Marin County woman who would rather be hiking on Mount Tam [Tamalpais] and gardening than doing anything else. She has her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she doesn't wear any makeup or fingernail polish, and what she really cares about is the environment.

Hat tip: Diane Fischler.

Nicely Named: Beeminder

In Monday’s Word of the Week post I briefly mentioned Beeminder, a commitment device to help people overcome akrasia and achieve their goals.

 

 

I like the Beeminder name, I wrote, because it suggests industriousness. But there’s a lot more to say about the name,  and I’m pleased to report that the Beeminder said much of it in a September 2011 blog post.

Co-founder Daniel Reeves wrote that Beeminder was originally called Kibotzer, a blend of kibitzer (Yiddish for someone who gives unasked-for advice—accent on kib, please) and bot (“a machine or program that interacts with you in a vaguely human way”). Thus Kibotzer: “A bot that bugs you about how fat you are.”

That’s cute, but when the founders decided to turn their hobby into a real business, they acknowledged that the name had to go. “Kibotzer” turned out to be hard to pronounce, and not enough people knew what a kibitzer was.

So they cast about for a new name. I hope they started with a naming brief—the blog post doesn’t mention it, and I’m sorry to say that many startups skip this essential step—but at least they “filled pages with candidate names.” That’s good: you need a lot of names, in a lot of styles, before you start narrowing the field. And the also-rans mentioned in the post show a lot of good lateral thinking: Flakeproof, Goalbugger, even Funky Goal Medina.

I wasn’t surprised to learn, however, that Beeminder came from someone outside the core team: founders are often too close to the problem to recognize the most effective solution. Once Beeminder was on the table, its advantages were evident. Here’s how co-founder Reeves spells it out:

1. Beeminder is a “me-binder” — a self-binding tool.
2. “Beeminder” rhymes with “reminder”.
3. It’s about “minding your goals” in the “mind your p’s and q’s” sense. (“Bee-mindful”)
4. Our esteemed co-founder Bethany Soule goes by “Bee”.
5. Bees are just cute (and hard-working!).
6. Beeminder sends reminders with a motivational sting.
7. Beeminder helps you make a beeline for your goal.
8. You use Beeminder because you want to be minded.

It’s not just that Beeminder evokes multiple meanings, it’s that all of the meanings are positive and relevant. Together, they add up to a strong, clear story that’s fun to tell—and to repeat to friends.

By happy coincidence, Ben Yagoda of the Not One-Off Britishisms blog wrote earlier this week that “minder”—a Britishism meaning “a person in charge of something”—is increasingly popular among speakers of American English. He cites four recent “minder” appearances, including one in the TV show “Gossip Girl.”

How to Evaluate a Corporate or Product Name

Whether you’re naming it yourself or working with a naming consultant, here are 10 questions to ask about a new name before you print the business cards or buy the domain.

1. Is it pronounceable? Put it to the telephone test: is it easy or awkward to say on the phone 50 or 150 times a day? Will it sound good in a radio or TV commercial? Does the sound of the name have any unwelcome associations?

2. Is it distinctive? Does the name stand out from your competitors’ names? Will it be confused with other names in your niche, or similar niches?

3. Is it memorable? When you tell people the name, do they remember it accurately? Do they stumble or make mistakes when repeating it? Does it have a counterintuitive spelling that may cause problems?

4. Does it tell a story? Does the name have energy and a bit of mystery? Does it invite people to hear the name’s story—and by extension your business’s story? Or is it so literal that it piques little interest? Remember: the name is the title of your story—not the entire novel.

5. Is it evocative? Effective names are metaphors. Does the name have positive associations that go beyond its literal meaning? Does it conjure images that are consistent with and favorable to your product or business?

6. Is it flexible? If you’ll be creating sub-brands, your umbrella name needs to allow for expansion. A strong metaphor—for example, “house”—suggests logical extensions (foundation, kitchen, picket fence). You may also want to consider “verbability”—the ability to turn your company and product name into an action term (Google, Digg, Tweet). Finally, think about whether the name can be turned into an acronym. Is this a desirable outcome? Then be sure the acronym is positive or at least neutral. If you don’t want your audience to reduce your name to initials, consider a single-word name.

7. Is it appropriate? A name for a prescription medicine should look and sound different from a name for a movie studio or a cosmetics brand. Is your name suitable to your industry, your product, and your brand personality?

8. What does it look like? People may see the name before they hear it. Is it easy to decipher at a glance? Is the spelling likely to confuse people? How does the name look in a logo, an ad, a T-shirt?

9. Is it global? Not all brands will have international scope, but if you think yours will, you will want to invest in thorough linguistic and marketing checks in your target markets.

10. Is it ownable? If you need trademark protection, have you gotten reliable legal advice? If you need to own an Internet domain, is the URL available? If it isn’t available, is it buyable? (Many, many domains are for sale.) If it isn’t buyable, can the name be modified to create an ownable domain?

Read more of my Naming 101 posts.

Etymology Isn’t Enough: The Aegis Problem

One of the underwriters of my local public-radio station is Aegis Living, which operates “residential communities” for old folks in California, Nevada, and Washington. “Aegis”—which should be pronounced with a long E in the first syllable—has an appropriate meaning for this company: protection, sponsorship, guidance. The word comes from Greek aigis, meaning “goatskin”; in Greek myth, the shields of Athena and Zeus were made of goatskin. In contemporary English, we usually encounter “aegis” in a phrase like “under the aegis of.”

Great story, right?

Here’s the problem: Every time the morning radio announcer acknowledges Aegis, he mispronounces the word so that it sounds almost exactly like “ageist.”

Ouch.

That’s not just a mispronunciation; it’s a miscommunication. I’m sure Aegis would no more want to be associated with the negative connotations of ageism than it would choose to name a new residential community “Elder Abuse Lodge.”

I always encourage my clients to choose names with positive etymologies and good stories. But etymology and story aren’t enough: Names also need to be memorable and pronounceable. And a foreign-looking, relatively obscure word like “aegis” is almost guaranteed to confuse some readers and speakers, even well-educated public-radio announcers.

If a common mispronunciation can contradict your brand message, please think beyond etymology and story and choose a name that sounds right.

August Linkfest

Even among billionaires, there’s room for improvement. See how Bill Gates has transformed his presentation techniques over the last few years. (Presentation Zen, via Brand Mix.)

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One way to add juice to a presentation is to use effective metaphors—for example, Gates’s “12-foot truck trying to get under a 10-foot bridge.” Listen to James Geary, who calls himself a professional aphorist, explain how metaphor works and why it matters. (The Pollywog Blog.)

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Want to become a name developer? Or name your own company or product? Nothing beats practice, practice, practice, but study helps, too. The Thingnamer blog has pored over some of the best books on naming and given each one a mini-review and an honest rating, from “Must Own” to “In Need of Update—Avoid.” Click through to buy.

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“When do you need an exact .com—and when can you get away without one?” In a succinct yet comprehensive video tutorial, Laurel Sutton, a principal at Catchword Branding, provides the lowdown on finding the right domain name.

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Two brand-related posts on Nancy’s Baby Names: “How Many Babies Are Named Ikea?” (answer: many more than necessary) and “Car Names As Baby Names.” (No, I’m not the Nancy of Nancy’s Baby Names. Meet the other Nancy here; read my own post on deciphering the IKEA naming system here.)

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Here’s a bit of irony: Condé Nast, which shut down Gourmet magazine in 2009 after 68 years of publishing, is getting into the restaurant business. The first titles to be licensed: Vogue and GQ. Brandchannel speculates about what the signature dishes of other hypothetical Condé Nast eateries might look like. (Glamour: “Are you really hungry for dinner? Or love?”)

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The San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant blog, Inside Scoop, asked readers to nominate the worst restaurant name in town. There are 112 comments so far; “Squat & Gobble”—yes, it’s a real restaurant, with two locations and an X + Y name—appears to be the unpopular favorite. (Via NameFlash.)

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What do Grace Kelly, Kurt Vonnegut, Johnny Weir, and Sherlock Holmes have in common? They’ve all had asteroids named after them. But first they had to win approval from the International Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union. (Mental Floss.)

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Bored with Buzzword Bingo? Take your most-loathed corporate jargon (“move the needle,” “realize negative gains,” “ideate”) to Unsuck It for an instant translation. Or click “I’m feeling douchey” for a random jargon-to-English conversion. (Hat tip: Karen.)

Beware of Greeks

You may have read about the Japanese "space yacht" that will be launched later this month; it's a large sail that will be propelled exclusively by solar energy. Its name? Ikaros, an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun. Oh, and also an allusion to another ambitious aviator, Icarus (or Ikaros). In the ancient Greek story, Icarus donned wings of wax, attempted to fly, and plunged to his death when the sun's heat melted the wax. It's meant to be a lesson in the consequences of hubris.

You'd think that "Ikaros" would be an inauspicious name for a spacecraft.* (Writing for the naming blog CatchThis, Aaron Hall called Ikaros "embarrassing and a huge naming mistake.") But Yuichi Tsuda, space systems expert at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, apparently doesn't see it that way. While acknowledging the connection with the doomed flyboy, Tsuba Tsuda assured journalists that "this Ikaros will not fly into the sun."

It's tempting to attribute the misnomer to cultural differences. But "Ikaros" is just one example of imprudent classical borrowings. Here are a few others:

Midas. There's Midas Muffler, of course (which owns midas.com), and more than 300 additional Midas trademarks in the USPTO database, including marks for a chicken sauce, a window film, and a "wealth advisor." King Midas, you may recall, was given the power to turn anything he touched into gold. So far, so good. But when his food and drink turned to inedible gold, he cursed the gift. In some tellings, Midas even transformed his daughter into a golden statue and lost her forever. Inconsolable, he renounced his wealth and abandoned his palace. In a sub-plot, he ended up with donkey's ears. A sad tale all around, but the only part those 300-plus trademark owners seem to have heard is the "turned-to-gold" part.

Pandora. If you listen to music online, you probably know about Pandora.com, the free Internet radio service. But there are more than 30 additional registered trademarks that include "Pandora," including Pandora's Chest ("small pouch made for bras"), Pandora's Unforgettable Moments (jewelry), Pandorapedia (books and stationery products; the mark is registered to 20th Century Fox), and Pandora's Boxxx ("DVDs, adult novelty items, and marital aids"). I once wrote ads for a company called Pandora's Confections that made chocolate eggs that opened to reveal chocolate chicks. It always struck me as slightly bizarre, given that the original Pandora—the first woman, in Greek mythology—was responsible for releasing all of the world's diseases when she opened that fateful box (actually a jar). Sure, she snapped the lid back in time to keep Hope alive, but that's pretty meager comfort.

Cressida. In accounts of the Trojan Wars, including the Iliad, Cressida is a Trojan woman who pledges her love to Troilus, the eldest son of King Priam. Then she's sent to the Greeks in a hostage exchange, forgets about Troilus, and takes up with the Greek warrior Diomedes. Homer, Bocaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare called her "faithless Cressida," and used her as "a paragon of female inconstancy" (says Wikipedia). The Japanese auto maker Toyota, however, disregarded the sordid story when it chose "Cressida" as the name of a midsize luxury sedan it sold from 1977 to 1993. The Cressida model was a success, but "faithless" seems an apt epithet for Toyota this year, given the forced recall of thousands of vehicles because of problems with accelerator pedals, traction control, and other defects.

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* Icarus is also the name of the international journal of solar system studies, published by Cornell University.

Image: "The Fall of Icarus," by Peter Paul Rubens, from here.

Brand Roundup

News and diversions related to brand stories, brand logos, and brand slogans:

In his most recent "On Language" column for the New York Times Magazine, Ben Zimmer investigates the corporate "etymythologies" behind slacks, sneakers, crackerjack, kisses (as in Hershey's), and—my favorite—dongle. He expands on "etymythology" in Visual Thesaurus:

Fanciful word lore gets passed around and sometimes gets accepted as the gospel truth. Companies like Keds, Haggar, and Hershey simply take that impulse to come up with lexical just-so stories and provide an institutional backing that encourages the myths to persist as a point of corporate pride.

Devon at Pollywog Blog notes that one famous etymythology is missing from the "On Language" column: Jamba Juice.

At one time, Jamba Juice asserted that its name was derived from an African word meaning “to celebrate.” The company published this specious claim on its Web site, raising the eyebrows of linguists who wanted to know which of the 1800 languages spoken in Africa was the original source. In Umbundu, “jamba” translates to “elephant.” In Swahili, it means “to fart.”

So—how well do you know your brands? Corporate communications agency Cramer Sweeney challenges you to identify 20 famous brands from their logos, taglines, mascots, and audio trademarks. (Via Wonder Branding.)

By the way, there are two errors in the Cramer Sweeney quiz answers. One is a spelling error; the other misrepresents a brand name. Can you spot them? UPDATE: Answers after the jump.

Death Takes a Crab Cake

Here's where I met a client for lunch yesterday:

Note the Xed-out eye. Yes, that fish is pining for the fjords.

 

By most criteria, "The Dead Fish" would be considered a very bad name indeed for a restaurant, or almost anything else. But every so often a contrary approach works, thanks to chutzpah, charm, and storytelling skill.

Here, from the menu, is Chef Andrea Froncillo's "Dead Fish Story":

When I was a boy growing up in Italy, I loved to watch my Nonna (grandma) work in the kitchen. The catch of the day—be it calamari, crab or a variety of fresh fish—was magic in Nonna's able hands.

Now my Nonna was a little Italian grandma with a big Italian heart. Friends, neighbors, even the local fishermen all knew, if you made your way to Nonna's when you smelled that wonderful fish cooking, you'd be welcome to a plate.

With so many people clamoring for her cooking, Nonna couldn't be bothered with small details. She never followed a recipe—she just stirred and sampled. And she never remembered the names of the fish she used!!

Whenever I would ask, "Nonna, what kind of fish is this?" she would shrug her shoulders and smile—"IT'S A DEAD FISH!!" Everyone laughed and had a great time.

The menu doesn't stop with a good story. It carries out the theme with category names: Drink-Like-A-Fish Cocktails (which include Crabby Mood Martini and Fish Breath Mint Julep), Recently Demised Fish of the Day, and Other Dead Things (prime rib, short rib, lamb, and filet mignon; the illustration here is of a dead cow, hooves in the air).

The restaurant's phone number is 510-787-DEAD.

Did I mention this is a waterfront restaurant, in the tiny San Pablo Bay town of Crockett?*

The view, needless to say, is killer.

And if you don't want a cocktail, I can suggest the perfect wine pairing.

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* Crockett is that increasingly rare thing, especially in California: a company town. For more than a century, the company has been C&H Sugar, which happens to be my client. The refinery is still active, and still a major landmark. Once upon a time, C&H used to advertise on TV; here are 10 of those old commercials. I love that jingle!

When a Good Story Isn't Enough

Lovely typeface. Nice color palette. Well-executed iconography.

As for the name:

Our unusual name can be traced as far back as the reign of Henry VII. It appeared on maps and other documents of the time as ‘Sandyballas’, which is the description given to the dome-shaped sand and gravel outcrops on our western boundary.

Those outcrops were formed millennia ago during the Eocene era. Many of them remain including Good Friday Hill and Giant’s Grave, and it’s for them that Sandy Balls Holiday Centre is named.

Yes, this 91-year-old Hampshire (UK) resort has history and etymology on its side. Our inner twelve-year-old, however, can't get past the uncomfortable-sounding double entendre. And the tagline ("Make It..."? Really?) isn't helping.

Bear in mind, however, that Sandy Balls is in a country whose citizens consume spotted dick and bangers and mash. So perhaps what we have here is a separated-by-a-common-language situtation.

Hat tip: Brand Channel and Brian Phipps, who tweeted about Sandy Balls this morning.

Names in the News: Virgance

Many companies "are turning to short-term 'test periods' as economic instability and high unemployment continue to shape hiring standards," according to a story published in the San Francisco Chronicle last Sunday. One such firm, Virgance, is as interesting for its name as for its hiring practices.

But first, the "in the news" part. Virgance is based in San Francisco; on its website,  it says it's "a company that seeks to promote world-changing activism campaigns using market-based methods that are effective, transparent, profitable, and scalable." According to the Chron story, Virgance requires all new hires to work as hourly contractors for a month before they're hired. Virgance's CEO defends that practice:

"I've had people who are horrible at interviewing but are awesome employees, and people who are great at interviews and horrible employees," said Steve Newcomb, who founded the 15-person company. "So for me this has zero to do with the current economy and 100 percent to do with building a top-notch team."

Virgance's one-month contract program is called "Try before you buy" and requires company staff to vote on the cultural fit and skill set of the employee on trial. The program has existed since the company's founding in 2000. "When you do get an offer at Virgance, it's incredibly empowering because you know that you were unanimously voted in," said Newcomb, 39.

Now: about the name. If you're seeing "Virgance" for the first time, how do you think it's pronounced? And what do you think it means?

The answer: If you assume the second syllable of "Virgance" is pronounced like the last syllable of "elegance," your logic is flawless. And you're wrong.