Interestingly enough, I do know that it’s Skype, which rhymes with hype, and type, and blah blah.. but I do pronounce it Sky-Pee myself! Why? many reasons.. first of all, of course, because I’m Italian, and I don’t follow English rules for words that are not English, unless I have to.
Second, because my mental associations went a bit further: Skype (in my Sky-pee world..) is a service that does calls over IP, meaning something which does linger in the Sky, but that eventually ends up being delivered over I P, therefore Sk-I-P.
Third, now that I have read about the original names (here and in other pages…. my girlfriend’s American, I have to document myself before I get into another argument about our beloved Voice Service…) I know that the service is a Peer-to-Peer, meaning that when it used to be “Sky Peer to Peer” the long version was already “Sky-Pee” and then the redundant “-r-to-peer”.. why not shortening it into Sky-pee?

The bit I know about brand names, having come across and having had to manage some myself, tells me that it’s not unlikely that a company names and profiles its brand based on the broadest (and with most chances of success) version of its variables. Once the Skype brand was established and mostly used in its Sk-hype form, why would the company even bother changing it?

Now, not that I know this is true, as a matter of fact, I don’t, nor I expect it be a better explanation than those hinting at a Hype or a Kype or any other non-”peeing” phonetics, but still… I find it enough to let me believe that I’m just as right as anyone else.. I guess I’m gonna have to drop a couple of lines to the founders themselves, if I want to clear my doubts. Not that I would eventually believe them, of course…

Being a non-native Enslish speaker, I had little options to think about Skype’s origin. Then, add the fact that in Mexico is better known for the IM service than the telephony service, I always thought it had something to do with “Type” as a verb.

Anyways, great blog and great post.

Name Inspector: Thank you for the fascinating blog! I found your website through the Feedburner publisher’s buzz and am enjoying reading through old posts. Having just formed (and named) a company last summer, I wish I’d known about your services sooner!

-Gradiva Couzin
Gravity Search Marketing

It doesn’t work as well as the second part of the compound, because that could give in unintended pronunciation of “ski”. As in, lets go grab a brewsky.

If you make it two words though, it seems acceptable. I might actually be interested in a beer called Brew Sky.