pop culture

Out of Africa, sort of.

Posted on by igor

Our erstwhile competitors, the strategically named name developers Strategic Name Development, have taken rationalization and hooha to Landorian heights. Either that or they actually believe that invented, compound contractions based tangentially in the Zulu language actually communicate ideas to the rest of the world. Strategic name development?:

Via a strategically reasoned press release:

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Zikula™, an open source software, was named by Strategic Name Development, a global brand naming consultancy that develops brand names, product names, company names, logos, and conducts global brand name research.

The Zikula brand name was created from several Zulu words, one of the official languages of South Africa, where “Zila ukudla” means fast and “Lula” means easy, which are the main attributes of the software.

The other top-of lexicon-official-lanuages of South Africa are: Afrikaans (Afrikaans), English, Ndebele (isiNdebele), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa), Sotho (Sesotho), Swati (siSwati), Tsonga (Xitsonga), Tswana (Setswana), Venda (Tshiven?a), and Xhosa (isiXhosa). Can’t wait to see what Strategic Name Development does with those.

Experience the real Africa at the Zikula website.

The blonde leading the blonde

Posted on by igor

Those fun-loving Aryans at Volkswagen are at it again. Producers of the horrendously named “Touareg” SUV, they remain true to form by naming their new “compact, more fuel efficient SUV”, wait for it… “Tiguan“. A truly phlegmatic choice, from both a personality and linguistic stance.

The Touareg has the distinction of being “The number one most polluting vehicle of 2008“. The Tiguan is being marketed as a “Greener SUV”. The obvious third problem is that the names are so similar, that the Touareg name betrays the Tiguan’s positioning.

How was the name “Tiguan” chosen? Why, by a focus group consisting of a mere 350,00 mortals. But the other name choices were worse. Funny thing is, the other names were so bad, it is obvious to us that VW stacked the deck, subverted democracy, and got the name they wanted all along. Be careful what you wish for.

According to Wikipedia:

As part of a marketing strategy by Volkswagen the name was chosen by the public through the Auto Bild group with over 350,000 voters through Auto Bild’s magazines and Web sites. The other possible names were Namib, Rockton, Samun and Nanuk. Tiguan is a combination of the German words Tiger (“tiger”) and Leguan (“iguana”).

We often fantasize about cats and reptiles mating here at Igor, we just never pictured the 17-inch chrome wheels.

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