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I often suggest that companies that assume meaningless names (or apparently meaningless names) are making a mistake by not leveraging the full potential of a good name. Google Zeitgeist appears to show that nonsense names may be having a comeback. Bebo was the number one most-searched item on Google in 2006 (just above MySpace - a name that is actually quite descriptive.) Also noteworthy - eight of the top-ten "What is..." queries on Google were medicines. This actually makes sense to me since there are policies in place for regulated drugs that prohibit the use of names that suggest the effects of the drugs. How many of the following list could do you know?
The only place I've seen most of these names are in my comment spam and junkmail folders. I do find it interesting that not many people seem to be asking about the Viagra-type products anymore. (The other two most-searched items were "hezbollah" and "ajax") As an extra last-day-of-2006 bonus I'll list Google's last available information on company/product searches (from November.) Bricks to Clicks: Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Sears, Costco Cars: Ferarri, Lamborghini, Hummer, Mercedes, Porche Random Assortment of Popular Corporate-site Searches from Around the World: eBay (Australia), Nexopia (Canada), Vodafone (Czech Republic), QXL (Denmark), La Redoute (France), Tchibo (Germany), Ferarri (Greece), Tokio Hotel (Hungary), Air Deccan (India), RyanAir (Ireland), Uniqlo (Japan), Friendster (Malaysia), TelCel (Mexico), LimeWire (Netherlands), Bebo (New Zealand), YouTube (Norway), Opony (Poland), Mercury Interactive (Singapore), ABSA (South Africa), Softonic (Spain), Blocket (Sweden), Araba (Turkey), BBC (United Kingdom), Mobifone (Vietnam). Note: I'm leaving out the links so we don't get a whole bunch of false hits on our site. I have yet to figure out exactly how to determine anything of value with regards to naming from the Google Zeitgeist (other than trends.) Certainly there's a lot of information on what business models are popular - Telecom, Social Networking, and Auctions are represented well - but there's little information about whether or not people actually know what these companies are doing. Zeitgeist is a better buzz-meter than it is an evaluation of a company's worth or success. I'd be willing to bet a whole lot of money that not long ago Enron was at the top of the Zeitgeist pile - and they certainly weren't there for a positive reason. Further complicating things, there are likely a lot of searches on company and product names for people who have no clue what it is that they're actually going to find. I've done this myself quite frequently when I've heard a name in the news or someone across the room mentions something... I just "Google" it and learn for myself what it is. This is especially useful when you're dependent on traditional media (like TV news) that taunts you with a story for 45 minutes before actually giving you what you want to know. As 2007 gets going I'll work to find some better ways to leverage the Zeitgeist data - perhaps giving you all some insight into the trends we at Stokefire see emerging in naming. (You already know of our Flickr naming pattern... so we'll be looking for the next big thing.) Happy Last Day of 2006!
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