Short Catchy Names for Products
We remember short names because they are a welcome relief from what the government produces.
The men and women we send to Parliament in Ottawa discuss issues of the day, reach some consensus then craft appropriate legislation, ordinary people call laws. They tend to have long and winding road names in difficult compromise English. Let’s try something hypothetical: Institutional Youth Investment Nutritional Act. What the hell! Translation please. The law might be about school lunches for kids under 10, because some of them don’t have food at home, at all.
Not business. They come up with attention-grabbing short names because competition is tough and targeted consumers do not have time to be dissecting and weighing names of a cellphone or ketchup. Business also devises short and sweet names because common sense is passe, not the in-thing anymore. We are married to our phones, so if you have anything to sell, make it snappy with short words. Point taken. Here are samples.
1. Yahoo
2. Google
3. Tazo
4. Fubu
5. Puma
6. Dior
7. Safari
8. Bing
9. Twitch
10. Fenty
11. Tubi
12. Twitter (will never die)
Yahoo makes me laugh. What kind of a name is yahoo? Is it a thing, an animal or a volcano? Anyway, this is just the tip of an iceberg. Can you think of other catchy names business uses and I don’t mean car names?
Nonqaba waka Msimang
Blogger Without Borders
Comments