Until the age of twenty-four, I believed the entertainment company known as Disney also went by the name Disnep /diz-neep/. This on account of their symbol’s last letter, and how liberal its penman was with that cursive loop. It’s been a hard misinterpretation to shake—Disnep being a big part of my childhood and all. I still internally refer to the company with a pesky ‘p’ on the end. It may seem comical to you (a much wiser more literate person than I) but it’s more strange than it is comical, strange that I was totally accepting and totally unaware of my mistake for 15+ years in a world where most of my entertainment—our entertainment—came from this company, and in a world where ‘Disnep’ is a completely illogical lexical construction. If in my youth, I mistook any other ‘y’ for a ‘p’—in crayfish, for instance—my mistake surely would’ve come to light before adulthood. But this was not the case with Disnep. Why?
Companies crave to be individual, and we’ve run out of individual words. All startups these days think they’re going to hit it big time, become prestigious worldwide, and for that they need to have a unique name, and for that, they pretty much just make up words. They dip their hands into scrabble pouches, find explosions of meaningless syllables in scat, get monkeys to dance on typewriters, or smoosh spoonfuls of Alphagetti together until they luck upon something loosely resembling a word—something malformed but new. It infuriates me.
They pump 'roids into random letters to grotesquely capitalize: InShot, DRMTLGY, LumaFusion, LunaDX, WOLFBOX, CeraVe. They drop vowels and force relationships on incompatible partners: Swvl, Blokfi, Truvani, Thinx, Femtis, JaxJox. They demand portmanteaus skip their hyphenated adolescence: Flodesk, Elecwish, Gridsight, Flutterwave, Vitacup. They craft business names and expect people to use them as verbs: Zwilling, Zwift, Beem It. In my mind, the greatest atrocity and the hottest trend is forcing a double letter. Here they duct tape twins together like two repellant magnets: Wavve, Carrd, Hastee, Zypp, Get Quuie. Ugh! It’s no wonder I thought Disnep was normal when there is a business out there called Viddyoze. I hate that these names sacrifice consumer understanding for uniqueness. I hate they feel entitled to misspell and invent new words when I’ve battled upwards against spelling for my whole literate life. I hate that the uniqueness of these names suggests that they genuinely have a new product or service when often they don’t. I hate they aim to be trendy and cool. But worst of all, I hate it works: Kodak, Sony, Google, Facebook, Walmart, cisco.
I mean, of course, if there were ten video streaming services called Streaming Service A–K, you’d go for the eleventh one called Netflix. And obviously if there were a selection of ice-creams in the fridge, numbered and unnamed, you’d pick the tub in the middle labelled Häagen-Dazs. A name that stands out is a manipulation. It has no bearing on the actual quality of the product or service, only serves to grab your attention and to (it hopes) make you think it’s worthy or cool. And even once I’ve spent money on a business, there’s always this tiny piece of me that wonders if I’ve selected this particular company/product because they’re the best, or because they have the best name. I fear for my free will. I fear that companies have focused on their name and sacrificed quality. In medieval times, a pictographic sign was plenty, and sales depended solely on service and the resultant word of mouth. But in the modern era, a cool business name seems essential. Well, in most industries anyway…
Tradespeople are our salvation. In today’s tireless economy, small trade business names feel almost anachronistic, a link to our more informative, logical, comical naming habits of the past. Perhaps the most common and convenient formula is the Place Name–Trade Formula, which (because I’m sure you’re interested) goes like this: [place name] + [trade] = [business name]. Examples include Mascot Electrical and Emerald Beach Plumbing. Then there is the almost-as-good-but-not-quite-as-informative Owner–Trade Formula which I challenge you to derive for yourself. E.g. Russell’s Concrete Cutting, Seb’s Automotive, NJ’s Locksmiths. One of the funnier trends in this realm of nomenclature is the usage of arbitrary adjectives such as ‘quality’ or ‘expert’ or ‘perfection.’ As if quality doesn’t come until it’s written in your name. And tradies seem to love alliteration, but struggle to find alliterative words, so we get things like: Stone Made Stonemasonry and Quality Plumbing Plumbers Newtown. And best of all, they’re comedians too: Down to Earth Electrical Services, Down to Earth Demolition & Excavation, Cover It Upholstery Sydney, Top Knot Carpentry & Joinery, Just Screw It (a carpenter) and Simpy Smashing Autobody Repairs.
All these names are fun and informative. They’re comfortable and familiar. Sure they mess up their capitalisation (How To lay Bricks Pty Ltd), or use exhaustive alliteration (Pure Plumbing Professionals “The Punctual Plumbers”), or miscommunicate a certain message (Happy Endings Hair Studio), or omit a crucial posessive ‘s’ (Wood Bricklaying—this one’s my favourite). But at least their mistakes are unintentional, and thus endearing, something which cannot be said for wannabe-famous startups. Perhaps if we stuck with these more traditional names, I wouldn’t worry over potentially being manipulated by marketing, avoiding products because their name is too ‘cool.’ And perhaps I would have avoided the embarrassment of ‘Disnep.’ But now you know, and I’m ashamed.
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