Comments on: Worst Company Names

Worst Company Names

MiguelCardoso — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:18:57 -0800

A Company By Any Other Name Would Smell Just As Foul: A pool-cleaning company called Poolife; an Internet terminal firm called NetPecker. With all the stupid rebranding now going on, it's a pity more attention isn't paid to companies in the politically incorrect but delightful funny names game. [Poolife and NetPecker courtesy of Bifurcated Rivets.]

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 23:03:39 -0800

Fun stuff Miguel, great post! This article in IT Week entitled The Ministry of Silly Names lays the blame for many nonsensical names on a UK consulting firm called Jiz. (Haha, a hilarious name in and of itself. Perhaps the reporter was being had on that count since a Google search did not turn up a UK consulting firm named Jiz, tho it did spew forth some interesting results.) At any rate, there's some fun stuff in the article on large firms rebranding - such as the silly fiasco with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the ill-planned "Monday" moniker.

By: Down10

Down10 — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 23:41:17 -0800

*giggle*

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 23:59:19 -0800

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the ill-planned "Monday" moniker. Don't forget 'Accenture'. Idiots. (God I loathe the Big 5 accountancy firms, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that they were sources of income for me for years...)

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:17:20 -0800

I don't know stavros; in light of the Enron scandal and its wake, it seems that Anderson Consulting might have been experiencing a bit of fortuitous foresight in choosing to change its name.

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:22:24 -0800

Curl up and Dye. A hair salon somewhere.

By: arto

arto — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:40:28 -0800

I am told a friend of mine needed the humour of GTA Vice City's (sadly fictional) Hyman Memorial Stadium explained to him. (Located on Hoarmount Avenue, but surprisingly far from the Cherry Poppers Ice Cream Co.) In the not-so-fictional realm, Giant Robot once mentioned a certain US city's Chinatown containing both a My Dung noodlehouse[*] (apparently this guy's a fan) and a Hung Fat lingerie company. (these guys?) I used to love mispronouncing Four King Chinese Food when I lived in Calgary's Northeast (try it--the food, not the mockery--if you're in Rundle or Whitehorn, they're good and cheap). And not even 80's-esque intercaps can save publishit.com's choice of domain names. (though, sadly, partsexchange.com and futuresexchange.com have vanished into the netherworld.) [*] I predict that when he retires from rap music and the Girls Gone Wild checks stop rolling in, Snoop Dogg will open a Vietnamese noodlehouse called Pho Shizzle.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:43:17 -0800

A mobile catering van called The Doobie Burgers... o, you heard that one? OK...

By: jamespake

jamespake — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 01:09:26 -0800

What about the large UK construction company - Wrekin. And there's Smeg which doesn't go down so well in the UK where they didn't even get the obvious URL www.smeg.co.uk (which is quite offensive so I won't link it).

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 01:18:28 -0800

stavros: Given that Arthur Andersen got jettisoned post Enron it's a good thing that Andersen Consulting changed their name, otherwise they might have gone down the tubes purely on name recognition. It might have been a stupid move initially but I bet the Accenture board of directors are still high fiving each other to this day.

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 02:03:57 -0800

What about company's names that try to reassure us. Where I live, we have a courier company called Precise Deliveries. I always have a laff when I see one of their vans. Precise! That's good. I'm was kinda getting sick of those Slightly Inaccurate Deliveries guys!

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 02:50:52 -0800

Sometimes the problem's not with the name in itself, but with the way it's presented, as in this ad for the Swedish healthcare company 'locum'.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 04:09:39 -0800

#24 on the list escapes me, but then, I grew up with that company, sorta; Dad worked there in Dallas, and I worked in the Austin facility briefly, and a hell of a lot of us have used their products in high school and college. They've even inspired a band name (see fourth paragraph) or two.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 04:19:42 -0800

Retired police officer opens a lawn-and-garden store: "Lawn Order."

By: jozxyqk

jozxyqk — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:28:52 -0800

As for unfortunate product names, I saw this:

when logging out of yahoo mail one day. Had to look twice. :)

By: jennyb

jennyb — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:35:07 -0800

Who could expect these "professional namers" to come up with anything other than meaningless corporateese for a company name when the ad firms "use an imaginative series of turbo-charged naming exercises, including Blind Man's Brilliance, Imagineering, Synonym Explosion and Leap of Faith ..." Ew. My biggest beef with corporate speak in general is that it stems from people in ostensible positions of power making up new nonsense and changing the meanings of perfectly normal, acceptable words to something entirely different, then using them constantly until people just accept them as part of a new vocabulary.* So these silly names fit right in with that tendency. The people who make the decision on these names are already speaking their own language so of course they think "Agilent" is great. PS It may have been wise for Anderson to change their name, but I still think "Accenture" is a stupid name to change it to. *Like slang, except instead of being used to weed out would be members of a social group, it's used to maintain a sense of superiority and separateness in the workplace.

By: jozxyqk

jozxyqk — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:37:14 -0800

And in the "unfortunately named people" category, there were two memorable ones in college: The University Chaplain, Michael Hunt and a student named Tram P. Ho

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:40:54 -0800

Wrekin However, in the UK most people know it's a placename pronounced "Reekin". My favourite excruciating name is the cleaning product formerly known as Jif. I gather some trademark issue forced it to be renamed, but what corporate idiocy came up with Cif, pronounced "syph"?

By: luser

luser — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:19:57 -0800

We had this discussion in February (try the google cache). No one remembers Bad Ass Jack's? "Big Dick's Halfway Inn"? "Bunghole Liquors"? Anyone? Oh, wait, Miguel wasn't in it. OK, do-over!

By: planetkyoto

planetkyoto — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:46:45 -0800

In Southern California there was an "AIDS Driving School" when I was a kid. Tough luck, guys.

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 07:56:00 -0800

I predict that when he retires from rap music and the Girls Gone Wild checks stop rolling in, Snoop Dogg will open a Vietnamese noodlehouse called Pho Shizzle. Boo! (I'm totally stealing that joke)

By: Skot

Skot — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:21:50 -0800

Two years later, still my favorite.

By: Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:00:38 -0800

Not quite the same, but this dentist has the phone number 888-ANUSMILE (they pronounce it "a new smile"). Always makes me laugh when I hear Jay Severin give the number on the radio.

By: cookie-k

cookie-k — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 11:26:01 -0800

Years ago, in Tampa, I used to drive past a rusty old construction trailer next to an unchanging pile of rubble. You had to look twice to read "Edifice Wrecks" on the side. Pity, I thought they deserved better. Best I could find in the phone book were "Stainless Steel Erections, Inc." and of course, "Johnny-on-the-Spot".

By: chuq

chuq — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:45:03 -0800

There's been a longtime business in L.A. called "Sid's Baby Furniture." The first word was capitalized on some of the signs, which made me think immediately of "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome" and also of what a lousy name that is for a store that sells baby furniture. I often wondered if it was just me, since nobody else seemed to notice.

By: jamespake

jamespake — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:58:22 -0800

However, in the UK most people know it's a placename pronounced "Reekin" Do they? Not me, until now. Either way it's a bad name.

By: halcyon

halcyon — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 19:01:05 -0800

Poolife has been a joy in our household for years. The link shows the way they brand it. Why not a space? Why not an extra L? Pure joy is why. Pure joy.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:01:25 -0800

Not me, until now Ah. It may be a regional thing. The Wrekin is a big hill in Shropshire, and in the West Midlands "to go round the Wrekin" = "to be longwinded in explaining".

By: ukamikanasi

ukamikanasi — Fri, 13 Jun 2003 23:11:19 -0800

The ballpark in Seattle is full of cute names for the food stands. My favorite is the Chinese stand, The Intentional Wok.