Category: name changes
Are your company or product name brainstorming attempts long on storm and short on brains? Igor has over 1000 brains in stock, ready to help you name whatever needs naming — most have very low milage, are hardly ever driven during the week, and are used only sparingly on weekends to scan refrigerator contents and such. Our collection of brains can be picked through at the Wordlab Forums, our free naming and branding brainstorming resource. Jump in and pick the brains!
Tips for picking a brain:
1. Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.
2. The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic, yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.
3. The end that was twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.
4. Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.
5. Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.
[ More posts about company names ]
I was briefly watching the local news a couple of nights ago, which I rarely do, and I caught a glimpse of this interview during a story about Southern California wildfires:
Now that’s a great name! Like a Bond Girl. And kudos to Chardonnay for not being shy about having it and putting herself out there. And good luck battling those wildfires!
For the rest of us who aren’t so lucky namewise, here is a Bond Girl name generator to help spice up our personal nomenclature. My Bond Girl names are Tawnie Small and Yoko Dos, both of which I quite like.
We get a lot of inventors here at Igor looking to name their new inventions, and we’re always studying the language of patents and trademarks. So, as a reference tool, here are Igor's Top 12 free online patent search services:
- IP.com
- USPTO
- WIPO
- Google Patents
- Patents.com
- FreePatentsOnline
- Patent Lens
- Faqs.org
- FreshPatents.com
- PatentStorm
- Patent Genius
- GetThePatent.com
There has been much speculation and pontification on whence the name Xfinity came, but look no further than the looming Comcast-NBC merger. Whilst kicking the NBC tires, surely even a beast as slow-witted as Comcast fumbled across the NBC property ‘The Office”.
The Dunder Mifflin logo sports an infinity symbol
Xfinity is meant to signal Comcast’s foray into the future of high tech possibilities, while at Dunder Mifflin, “Infinity” is the name of the internal initiative to bring technology to the failing paper company.
Why would the comedy writers of “The Office” chose the name “Dunder Mifflin Infinity” for the high tech effort? Because it is silly, obvious, pitiful and ridiculous, in keeping with ambiance of the show.
The name was such a hit that DunderMifflinInfinity.com is the show’s official fansite.
In the second episode of the fourth season titled “Dunder Mifflin Infinity”, regional manager Michael Scott best summed up the idea of “Infinity” (or Xfinity, for that matter):
“Everyone always wants new things. Everybody likes new inventions, new technology. People will never be replaced by machines. In the end, life and business are about human connections. And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake. And to me, the choice is easy.”
“Comcast Xfinity. The possibilities are mindless”
The viable bit of warm and snuggly insurance company AIG has been spun-off and dubbed “Chartis”. A bad name? Well, yes. But that is just what they needed. Sometimes a terrible name is the perfect name. In today’s Insurance Journal, a so-called naming expert spouts off:
According to AIG, Chartis derives from the Greek word for map, which the company said underscores the company’s 90-year history as a global insurance pioneer.
While AIG is apparently not alone in liking the name, is Chartis a name to remember?
Perhaps not, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
One naming expert says the new corporate moniker is neither memorable nor snappy — and in that regard the name Chartis is perfect for what AIG wants to do, which is to distance itself from its old company and not draw a lot of attention to itself while doing so.
“It’s the kind of name that’s in one ear and out the other,” said Steven Manning, managing director for Igor, a well-known international naming and branding agency based in San Francisco. “It blends into the woodwork, which is just what the assignment was.”
Even the logo, a compass, is predictable, Manning noted.
Manning likened the move to Enron’s adopting Prisma Energy and Phillip Morris choosing Altria.
“It’s about breaking the association with AIG, like going into witness protection,” he said.
Chartis Insurance is using www.chartisinsurance.com for its Web site. Chartis Group uses chartis.com and chartisgroup.com.
Chartis Insurance, headquartered in New York, of course, has quite a head start on other companies picking a name. It includes the profitable AIG/AIU Commercial Insurance, Foreign General Insurance and Private Client Group operations. It had a combined statutory surplus of $32.1 billion worldwide at year-end 2008 and more than 40 million clients around the globe.
AIG/AIU hopes that the financially strong Chartis will be recognized for its success apart from the AIG name, which has been tainted by actions out of its London financial products unit that eventually resulted in a U.S. federal government bailout. The P/C units now being branded as Chartis did not get into trouble and did not require bailout funds.
As we gleefully pranced and flounced about, celebrating the 250 thousandth download of the Igor Naming Guide; we got a complaint. At 115 pages, the ultimate free, how-to resource for naming companies and products, had gotten too long.
Having nothing better to do, we responded. The naming guide is now available in two different lengths: soul-crushing (115 pages) and moderately-irritating (26 pages).
Either version of the naming guide can be downloaded here.
It’s a bad time for A-list biotech companies.
From Anesiva to Avigen, a number of biotech companies with names starting with an “a” and including a “v” are facing tough times. So is it the name — or the companies — that are not so sweet?
Avigen Inc. of Alameda will liquidate after a five-month war of words with its largest shareholders. Anesiva Inc. of South San Francisco, which on March 25 said it has enough cash to last into April, hopes to gross $3 million in a rights offering. And Avicena Group Inc. of Palo Alto, while holding on with $1 million raised from foreign investors last fall, was kicked off the NASDAQ bulletin board back in September and hasn’t filed a financial statement with the SEC since May 2008.
“So many biotechs started with that (“a”) pattern, so a disproportionate number are failing now because there are more of them,” said Jay Jurisich, creative director and cofounder of Igor Inc., a San Francisco naming and branding agency.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Read more: naming companies, naming company, naming consultants
Via Dom Nozzi:
Ben & Jerry created “Yes Pecan!” ice cream flavor for Obama.
They then asked people to fill in the blank for the following:
For George W. they created “_________”.
Here are some of their favorite responses:
- Grape Depression
- Abu Grape
- Cluster Fudge
- Nut’n Accomplished
- Iraqi Road
- Chock ‘n Awe
- WireTapioca
- Impeach Cobbler
- Guantanmallow
- imPeachmint
- Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker… Swirl
- Heck of a Job, Brownie!
- Neocon Politan
- RockyRoad to Fascism
- The Reese’s-cession
- Cookie D’oh!
- The Housing Crunch
- Nougalar Proliferation
- Death by Chocolate… and Torture
- Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
- Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
- “You’re Shitting In My Mouth And Calling It A” Sundae
- Credit Crunch
- Mission Pecanplished
- Country Pumpkin
- Chunky Monkey in Chief
- George Bush Doesn’t Care About Dark Chocolate
- WMDelicious
- Chocolate Chimp
- Bloody Sundae
- Caramel Preemptive Stripe
- I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands…with nuts
But who is Dom Nozzi? If it is true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, then Dom can be summed up by this list of his friends as of 1966.
Of course, you may just want to judge him based on the fact that he maintains a list of his friends from kindergarten.
He is obviously quite mad.
Via cnet:
Seagate claims that its all new family of hard drives offers the lowest power consumption and record-setting for any tier-two enterprise
applications.
The Constellation family, as it’s called, includes two models: the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch
Constellation ES. Both drives also include PowerChoice from Seagate, which decreases power
consumption by up to 54 percent, arguably the highest in the industry.
According to Seagate, the PowerChoice technology is designed to deliver the power-reduction savings
without sacri?cing performance and data integrity. In addition, the Constellation family features
enterprise-grade reliability and is rated at a full 1.2 million hours of mean time between failures.
Posted: August 25th, 2010 |
Category: company names, identity, name changes, product names, taglines 