

Do company names actually matter? - luu
http://yosefk.com/blog/do-company-names-actually-matter.html

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frobozz
> Amazon: "plenty", does "things that scale".

Looking at form of the other entries, it appears that the author claims that
the word "Amazon" means "plenty".

In my dictionary, it means "no boobs", which might imply that the company
would do everything except porn.

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GotAnyMegadeth
For anyone wondering, Google says:

"late Middle English: via Latin from Greek Amazōn, explained by the Greeks as
‘without a breast’ (as if from a- ‘without’ + mazos ‘breast’), referring to
the fable that the Amazons cut off the right breast so as not to interfere
with the use of a bow, but probably a folk etymology of an unknown foreign
word."

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jordan_litko
They matter incredibly, just not for the criteria which OP believes makes a
good name. Naming isn't logical. No one cares if the name perfectly represents
what your company is and does. But it damn well better sound good and be
memorable. In a society so focused on images and status a good name could be
the difference between success and failure. (depending on the type of product)

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jonsen
Best sounding company name in my ears: Motorola

For an acronym IBM is sounding surprisingly well.

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bitJericho
"Microsoft: stands for "microprocessor software". Still the dominant software
vendor for descendants of the original microprocessor. Never made commercially
successful hardware."

Do you not count the xbox 360?

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_yosefk
It's definitely a success, but:

* Its success would not save Microsoft if Windows and Office usage sharply declines

* Nor would its failure ever break Microsoft

* ...both of which resulting from the market being not very large _by Microsoft 's standards_

* I'm not so sure about this last one, but a competitor could come out with new exciting hardware at any moment (a recent example is VR headsets) and then gamers would flock to the new platforms and so would game developers. Since people care less about old titles, the barrier to entry is not nearly as high as in the Windows or Office cases.

That said, my case is shaky enough, and I wager that you could find counter-
examples that would make the Xbox omission tiny in comparison :) I just had
this thought and was surprised by how many companies sorta fit the pattern.

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rtkwe
There's another thing that's important about company names, and more generally
any product or software name. It has to be google-able. The amount of
frustration that come from trying to find a generic software name is awful.
E.g. Go, finding anything about go is awful until you start using golang.

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_ak
Well, that criticism extends to all programming languages named after letters
of the alphabet, metal oxides, musical notation, famous mathematicians,
places, or just generic English words.

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calinet6
Yes, of course. But so does everything else. And the name interacts with the
perception of your company coming from all those other sources.

This is complexity. You have to understand the whole story, not just the cover
of the book.

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jnaour
Initially, Bezos wanted a name for his company that began with an "A" for
alphabetic list purpose.

