A number of people on ProjectNameProposals have been strawmanning some excellent naming guidelines which people should probably consider when creating and voting. See also: ProjectNameProcess, ProjectLegal, ProjectAdvertising.
These are ordered (hopefully by WikiConsensus...) in decending order of obvious benefit.
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Keep it usable, short. Long names such as "Gutenblog" will probably just get abbreviated to "GB" in communication, which will be confusing. People are lazy, time is money, bandwidth is expensive, and all that... Keep it short applies to both syllables and characters: two syllables maximum. It has to be easy to spell and type; just ask anyone whose domain provokes typos.
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Avoid acronyms. This requirement/guideline has been repeated time and time again throughout the wiki. Acronyms are passe; welcome to the 21st century Seriously, the confusion over "RSS", and those produced by the W3C Acronym-Engine should be as good a warning as any as to acronym flood.
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Make it unique, memorable. Benefits: less naming collisions with other projects; less confusion as to what sense the name is being used in; instant recognizability in any context for people who are already familiar with it; seperation of the name from any existing label, meaning that people might actually look it up; easier popularity tracking via search engines. The misspelled word idea is interesting (e.g. Wyre), as is the invented word one (e.g. Panovox).
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Be general. Using particles such as "blog" is to be avoided, since it limits the perceived scope of the format. Don't, however, let this deter you from basing it on other syndication synonyms: just make sure the scope isn't unduly restricted.
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Multicultural. The name should resonate, positively, in most languages. Remember the cautionary tale of the Chevy Nova, a name that didn't work in Spanish (an urban legend, as it turns out, but a good cautionary tale nonetheless).
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Legal Strength. What is the domain name requirement, if any, for the project? Is .com or .org necessary? Is a unique fusion, empty vessel name wanted, or something which may be used for purposes far afield from this technology? Many words are shared as brands by a variety of products and services, such as Maverick--or Apple. Others are unique and usually invented, and generally either protected from other uses, such as Kodak, or lost through generic adoption, like aspirin or formica. search trademarks at uspto.gov Also see discussion at AtomTrademarkConflicts.
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Quirkiness, substance encouraged. The cleverer, more retro-chic, interesting, mellifluous, and stunning the name, the better. To that end, avoid common banal overused words like "meta", "web", "simple", "open", "new". Go for greek etymologies, interesting letter combinations, and so on.
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Clear pronunciation. The less ambiguous the word is to pronounce, the less misunderstanding and embarrasement will arise in verbal communication ('though perhaps a difficult pronunciation will make it easier to feel elite).
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Usable as noun and verb. If you look at past precedent, words such as "Hoover" and "Google" quickly became verbized as their popularity grew. Google are, in fact, taking steps to ensure that their trademark isn't used as a verb, but they won't succeed. This project should welcome verbization and genericization of its name.
-- [SeanPalmer], and many [InvisibleHands]. [RefactorOk]
Issues that make a name unusable.
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Trademark conflict
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web or content management project name conflict
Issues that make a name undesirable
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Hard to spell
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Hard to pronounce
Why Good Naming is Important
Why does a name even matter? Surely the format should stand on its own merit?
The first thing that people see about a new technology is its name. That's how they're introducted to it, and will always refer to and remember it by. "A rose by any other name..." doesn't apply: formats ain't as pretty as roses, and they need to be able to lean on their names for beauty... Whilst not everybody can be satisfied, a good project name will be conducive to the furtherment of the project itself--cf. the benefits in the guidelines above.
Examples
How some current proposals fare in light of these guidelines...
Commlog. Googlecount: 1,080. It's a bit short, but probably won't be abbreviated as "CL". It's fairly unique, though the "comm" bit harkens to "communist" as well as "common(s)", and the "log" part is both bland and restrictive.
Ecco. Googlecount: 1,700,000. This is a very good name, and it has recognizability now due to the fact that Echo was such a strong contender for a while. It's not unique, however, and that's off-putting. It's a surprisingly clever name, and is already a verb so no problems with verbization. Googlecount for the alternative spelling Ekko: 27,000.
Lokahi. Googlecount: 7,500. Hawai'ian, but as with all Hawai'ian words, the pronunciation is clear. It's actually slightly Scandinavian sounding, too. It's unique, only conflicts with social things, quirky, and has a nice meaning. To lokahi: verbing it is a bit unnatural.
Neolog. Googlecount: 1,280. Again, the "log" part is bland and restrictive, and the "neo" part just makes me want to add "lithic" in there. It's got a low googlecount, but it's a very bland word, and quite contrived.
Panovox. Googlecount: 2. Contrived, but very intreresting. Of all these example proposals, it's the most retro-chic, with a very clear etymology in pano (all) and vox (voices). The googlecount implies that it's compeltely unique. MichaelBernstein's suggestion.
Wyre. Googlecount: 93,000. This is a very good word indeed: short, memorable, quirky, has a good retro-meaning (put it out on the wire: them's the telegraph days!). It doesn't make a verb too well, though, and surprisingly has a high googlecount.
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"Wyre me your expense report, Johnson!"
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"I wyred Sean (a comment) regarding his most recent post."
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"Hey, there's a fresh wyre over on ongoing."
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"The Spoutlet is really wyred up today. "
Comments
[JeremyGray] I've removed some text that attributed certain suggestions to me. The 'usable as both noun and verb' was mentioned by at least one other person before I cast my vote in that direction, and Wyre was submitted by someone else - I just happened to put my vote next to it as I wanted to be clear regarding voting for Wyre and not WebWire (I'm going back to clarify that distinction in a moment). As for Wyre - the Googlecount is unfortunate. Wyre was starting to grow on me . As for using it as a verb, though, I have to disagree. The word 'wire' is often used as a verb in various parts of the finance industry and seems to work just fine, e.g. "Have you wired that payment?" etc.
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[SeanPalmer] Whoops about the attributions--my apologies. As for Wyre, I still think that it's the best choice available, notwithstanding the high Googlecount and Wyre Inc. Hmm... I'd put some comments about it on ProjectNameProposals, but someone seems to have deleted the entire conversation--argh! I had hoped that they'd've just split it off onto its own page. And yes, sorry, I agree about its use as a verb too, now. I'm not sure why I wasn't thinking of that before...
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[TomasJogin] I'm in complete agreeance (is that a word?) with the above assessments on what constitutes a good name. I'm also in favor of naming the project Ecco or Wyre.
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N.B. Ecco is disallowed for legal reasons.
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[FrankCarver] The converse of the "easy to pronounce" rule is surely that a good name should be easy to recognize when spoken, easy to spell, and hard to confuse with any other terms. If I were to say to you "I'll wyre those details to you", you'd most likely hear "I'll wire those details to you". Likewise If I tell someone at a party about this new "wyre" project, he might try and google for "wire" instead. Please remember that not all communication is written. Then imagine I write about the project, and my spelling checker "corrects" it ... A simple mis-spelling of a common word does not make a good name.
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[TomasJogin] So what? I mean, you could just say "wyre, spelled with a y". And, with any name there's also the possibility that he didn't hear you right, and went off googling for Mecho, Wyjer, Sygma or Atol. How is this a big deal? In my Real Life, that's hardely, if ever, a problem. If the guy is interested, he'll ask for an URL, or how it's spelled, or I tell him (or her) anyway.
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[MikeDaconta] I recomend adding Representative to the guidelines. In other words, the more that a name denotes the purpose of the project, the better. This also makes it easier and less subjective to judge the utility of names.
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[TomasJogin] What about purpose-specific? For instance, any names with "Feed" in them should be disqualified, this format will be more than a "feed", namely an API and an archiving format. Putting "feed" in the name will only make more people think that this format is an RSS alternative and nothing more. Specifically: BitFeed and Feedcast (see NameFinalVote).
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[CJR, RefactorOk] I personally disagree, although I wasn't the one to move FeedCast back up after it was objected to (we should definitely keep objection fragments with the names even when they are moved up to the final candidates- as they should be considered in people's votes). My view is that BitFeed and FeedCast do not violate the original specs that NameFinalVote was based on, such as Be general. Even if purpose specific was in the spec, I still don't think "feed" is a violation. We are dealing with feeds no matter what purpose it is used for syndication, publication, API, archive, aggregation, etc. or what application it is used in blogs, newsreaders, event viewers, my shopping list, etc. But, what do I know, I've switched my view on Atom from a negative to a positive one...
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[JesseJamesGarrett] First, what are the API and archiving format for, if not feeds? Second, a name that relates to part of what the technology does is far preferable to a name that relates to none of it. Third -- and this part is really important -- this name is not for anyone who already knows what RSS is. This name needs to communicate the concept of syndication technology to a broad consumer audience.
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[TomasJogin] So, conversely, would you say the same thing about a name which has "API" or "Archiving" as a part of it?
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[JesseJamesGarrett] No, because "API" and "Archiving" are inappropriate given my other points.
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[TomasJogin] How is "Archiving" or "Interface" being part of the name different than "Feed" being part of it?
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[JesseJamesGarrett] "API" and "Archiving" are not suitable for educating a general audience about syndication technology. "Feed" provides a hook to talk about the concept of syndication -- it turns the question "What does that name mean?" into "What is this technology for?", which is exactly what we want.
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[TomasJogin] But, this project isn't just about syndication. Whatever, let's just say we have different opinions about the scope of this project, and leave it at that.
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[CJR] There is nothing converse in equivocating "feed" to "API" or "Archiving".
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[TomasJogin] Who's equivocating "feed" to "API" or "Archiving"? I'm certainly not. My whole point is that these are distinctly different things, which is why the name shouldn't include either of them.
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[CJR] You are. Your quote: "How is "Archiving" or "Interface" being part of the name different than "Feed" being part of it?" Your logic doesn't make sense. "Feed(s)" is the base nature in any context of use of the format no matter how you interface with it or in which application you use it. A feed being: To distribute to a larger audience or group of receivers by way of a network, a syndicate; material or an amount of material supplied, as to a machine, i.e. News feed, event feed, product feed. Feed != API. Feed doesn't limit scope. All your other examples do. Plus JesseJamesGarrett makes some great points about audience. Mr. Garrett has made me focus on Bitfeed or FeedCast as possibly good choices, if there ever is another vote. I can't believe we are dealing with the metaphysics of the name. The minutia of this has gotten over the top for me. I am calling it pie or Atom for now and look at the fancy AtomArtwork. Ooo, pretty. Time to move on to other aspects. (FWIW, I do agree also that we should just leave it where it stands, as we have differing opions -- and will not agree on this issue.)
* [JesseJamesGarrett] I have to vote a strong [-1] on both the preference for invented or misspelled words (under "Make it unique, memorable") and the Quirkiness guideline. Syndication technology involves a complex set of concepts to get across to a non-technical audience. Tagging the technology with a name that doesn't reflect those concepts and doesn't relate to anything in the user's previous experience only makes that job of communicating and marketing the technology harder. And if there's one thing this name must do, it must make talking about the technology to neophytes easier.