Google, Yahoo, Twitter... they're words that we hear every day.
How did they come to be? Was there creative genius behind the choices to apply them to such hugely successful websites? As someone who loves words and the psychological effects they can have, I went searching for answers. (and OK, the idea was also part of a college assignment).
Some words are just more fun to say than others. Some words are even more fun to SEE than others. Take the case of "Google."
Originally, the creators of Google had named their creation "Googol," a term which refers to a very large number: a one followed by one-hundred zeros. Intellectually, the name was clever and appropriate, alluding to the seemingly infinite websites that their search engine would find and take users to. In practical terms however, it was problematic in that it's a rather ponderous word to say aloud, if pronounced exactly as it appears on the page, with an awkward glottal stop accenting the second syllable.
Then the first enthusiastic investor in the fledgling company wrote the entrepreneurs a check and misspelled the name "google." Fortunately, they knew a good thing when they saw it, and suddenly the name was easy and fun to say. What was originally a thoughtfully clever name became a playfully clever name, and Google became synonymous with web searching.
The creators of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang and David Filo, claim to have chosen the name with self-deprecating humor. A "Yahoo" is a member of a crude and vulgar race of people in the book Gulliver's Travels, to which Yang and Filo compared themselves. Despite that, the word is more commonly used in modern parlance as an exclamation of delight, and as such, is an appropriate and clever choice for a Web destination that presents new discoveries. The term "yahoo" was used memorably by the Pepsi company in 1965 to advertise their new acquired soft drink: "Ya-Hoo, Mountain Dew!"
Twitter evolved from "twttr," inventor Jack Dorsey's code name for a proposed social network based on the idea of SMS (Short Message Service). Dorsey has explained that the definitions of the word twitter, 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds' seemed to perfectly define the nature of his creation. He had also influenced by the name "Flickr," another popular Internet site.
Is the naming of Internet sites a science? An art? Creating business names is certainly an art and a science in the world of advertising and branding. There are rules and guidelines that tell us that certain sounds are more memorable, more impactful and more seductive than others. These rules are all evident in names like Google, Yahoo!, and Twitter.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, they all have appealing phonaesthetics, the inherent pleasantness (or unpleasantness) of sounds. All are "punchy," two syllable words consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (known in formal poetry as a trochee). This is not accidental, as wordsmiths in business and art are well aware of the power of words to "wake up" or lull a listener.
Would Google be as successful if it had been named "Mashable"? All I know is that I like to say Google almost as much as I want to use it, and that's the sign of a well-chosen name.
