The Name Inspector has recently learned about Lard Butt , a new athletic apparel company based here in Seattle. This is a great example of naming done right. First, there are the positive associations of lard, a filling and economical ingredient that makes fried foods taste great. The word lard also...

Who knows, if Prince (the musician) had picked out an esoteric, but pronounceable, name, how many more albums would he have sold? And, I am quite sure the irony, of changing your company name, to that of a 1969 film of the same pronunciation , one about political murder, a government overthrown, wit...

The word awkwordplay, which The Name Inspector has just coined, demonstrates what it means: awkward wordplay. A play on words can be awkward for different reasons, and awkwordplay shows one of the most common reasons: a mismatch in syllable emphasis. Awkwordplay is a blend based on the phonetic over...

For those of us who toil in a nerdly field, the presence of a maverick who stomps on the terra, chokes every bead of bile from life’s clogged ducts, and then vaporizes in a defiant, atavistic lunge, elevates us all. In the Name Game, that man was John Smart of Interbrand. This year marks the t...

* I've not been as "punchy" recently as I should have been....

Ben Kepes drew my attention to Viisibility, which appears to be a very interesting web based supply chain management / data clearing-house / hub type of a business. At first reading I completely misread the name, thinking it was Visibility.  Wow, what a great choice, I thought - a simple, commo...

Now you can name Pontiac’s new sport truck. (It looks like a newer version of the El Camino to me.) Pontiac is jumping on the user generated content bandwagon and has created a mini-site where folks can suggest names for this “bad boy.â€� (Their words, not mine.) What do you get in return? W...

.. but they still can’t name to save their ass. However, that is a nice pic of Anthony Shore on the hompage. And as hard as it is to believe ladies, he is straight and available. Anth’s interests include phlebotomy, Harry Potter and calf massages (we forgot to ask which definition of ...

…with dead mollusk secretions. How do you improve on the taste of Bud? Easy, just add clam sweat, tomato juice and lime. If you’ve ever wondered what carbonated turtle blood tastes like, wonder no more. Funny bit is, it’s not really a brand dilution. The taste of this swill is pret...

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 B...