---
title: "What naming is, or as you name the boat, so shall it float"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/what-naming-is
published: 2008-11-20
summary: "A short, meaningless name beats one that describes the product. A few unlucky names from Odesa, and a few Ukrainian ones I came up with."
---

# What naming is, or as you name the boat, so shall it float

Naming is the process of coming up with a name for something. The word most often means a service: finding a good name for a trademark, say.

*The "official" name for the science of names is **semonemics**. Whoever came up with it can't have been very good at naming ;)*

A project's name certainly affects how well it does. But does a beautiful name really matter, and will it bring us more customers?

It's clear what advertising people will say. [Mikhail Lityuga](http://crea.com.ua/), for one, insists that names should be left to professionals, and that names dreamed up "by the company director over a cup of coffee usually have no commercial value".

It's equally clear that **a good name can help a business and a bad one can kill it**. The only question is what counts as a good name. Besides, a name is often just neutral and barely affects the business or its success, and such names are probably the majority.

The web is full of examples of bad names. I'll add a car anti-theft system called **Sprut** ("The Octopus", the Soviet title of an Italian mafia series), a real-estate agency called **Anna-L** and a grocery store called **Black Rose**. Odesa examples, by the way.

I think naming should stick to one rule:

**a meaningless but short and easy-to-remember name (the simplest example: Apple) is better than a name that describes the product or service (what could be worse than a shop called "Groceries"?).**

Probably my most successful naming was for a Ukrainian Digg-like news site, [chuv.com.ua](http://chuv.com.ua/). *Chuv* is Ukrainian for "heard". Admittedly, the good name didn't save the project from dying.

Ukrainian-language naming is fascinating in general. Again, Mikhail's portfolio has great examples.

Here are a few Ukrainian names of my own:

- for a Web 2.0 service for travelers, ***mandr*** (from *mandry*, "travels", in the manner of Flickr and the other services of that wave)
- for a magazine about culture, ***zlam*** ("break")
- for an online store selling PDAs, ***na doloni*** ("in the palm of your hand")

There's even a dedicated name exchange, [VotImenno](http://votimenno.ru/) ("Exactly"), for those who need a name for a project and those who like inventing names. If I'm not mistaken, it's a product of [Dmitry Davydov](http://davydov.blogspot.com/), who is well known on the Russian-speaking internet. Though maybe it's a different Davydov.

P.S. Škoda Auto: *shkoda* is Ukrainian for "harm" and "what a pity". Don't you feel sorry for your car?