Word travels fast on the web. That can be a big boon to a business, but it has its down side as well. Consider Blews.
This is the name of a news aggregator being developed at Microsoft Research. It not only displays news stories, but also shows how much they’re being discussed in blogs from the […]

Entrepreneur and longtime reader Rich Skrenta has a search start-up called Blekko (click on that link and say hi!). It was covered on TechCrunch, and then Rich wrote a follow-up blog post telling the story of the name Blekko and asking for The Name Inspector’s input.
OK, here goes. Obviously Blekko is a ridiculous name and […]

The Name Inspector just learned about Incesoft, which claims on its website to be “the world’s leading provider of web robot technology”. Now, this is a Chinese company (which was selected for inclusion on the 2007 Red Herring 100 Asia list), so that’s a bit of an excuse, but…Incesoft? Is that the very best name […]

Of the name Utterz, with special reference in the final paragraph to movies of the late 1990s.
Sometimes The Name Inspector must respond swiftly to the cries of an innocent web surfer in distress. The listenerd has issued a plea for help with the name Utterz, for a mobile blogging platform. With Utterz you can […]

Richard MacManus at Read/WriteWeb has posted a great list of the 10 worst web app names. The comment section, just as great, shows that those ten have a lot of competition.
Tags: readwriteweb, rrw

Phil Butler over at ReadWriteWeb has written a post about a new online music service called Fairtilizer. Oh dear. The Name Inspector doesn’t even know where to begin.
This name is presumably a pun: the first syllable of the word fertilizer has been changed to the similar-sounding word fair. Or maybe the word air has been […]

Duncan Riley has posted on TechCrunch about Incuby, a social network where inventors can promote their inventions. The Name Inspector thinks this is a great idea for a web business.
But not a great name for one. Clearly it’s intended to be a fun tweak of incubator, which is what we call organizations that help delicate […]

Most company names consist of just one or two meaningful parts. That makes sense, because brevity is important in a name for several reasons: memorability, simplicity of pronunciation, ease of writing and typing, and graphic compactness in a logo.
So crowded is the space of names, however, that people have been forced into three-meaningful-part territory. The […]

Have you noticed that your local Kinko’s has become FedEx Kinko’s?
Kinko’s is known for having a laid-back corporate culture. Maybe a little too laid back. The Name Inspector once went to a 24-hour Kinko’s in Manhattan, and there was no one there. Not only were there no other customers, but there were no employees, either. […]

If you found the title of this post a little confusing, then you have some idea what’s wrong with the name Tenacious Offense. This name belongs to young Seattle-based company that seems to be a kind of rent-a-bizdev team for small startups trying to land big clients. Thanks to Brant Williams for writing and sharing […]