What’s in a name?

I’ve just been doing some work revamping my blogging app and I’ve decided that I’d like to give it a name and brand it. So, what to call it? There’s so many applications out there, so many websites, how do you come up with a good name?

After doing a bit of googling for names I found this interesting article over on the Firewheel Design site, ‘Four Concentric Circles of a Web 2.0 Name‘.
Josh from Firewheel has come up with four categories of names used in applications:

1. The Literal Name (DropSend, Meetup etc…)
2. The Metaphor (Mint, Digg, Flock etc…)
3. The Pseudo Abstract (Del.icio.us, Flickr, Odeo etc…)
4. The Cab Calloway (Squidoo, Meebo, Rojo etc…)

It’s an interesting article, so it got me to thinking about names, in this particular case it’s for a blogging tool so it needs to ‘say’ something.

A couple of ideas…

A couple of names came to mind:

Blogorrhea:
The word ‘Logorrhea’ is defined in Wikipedia as an “excessive flow of words” and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness that occurs in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania.

Examples of logorrhoea might include talking or mumbling monotonously either to others or more likely oneself. This may include the repetition of particular words of phrases, often incoherently.

I actually quite liked this one, but it just sounds a bit too much like ‘diarrhoea’ though. Fair enough as I guess logorrhea is a bit like verbal diarrhoea. So, close but not quite appropriate ;)

Captain’s Blog:
Mmm, what more needs to be said?

This last one was promptly discarded as an idea for obvious reasons! The two names I’m considering are simply, ‘Blurb‘ and ‘Blah‘. I like them because they’re short, simple and are obviously related to writing or speaking, which is what blogging is about I guess. They both fall into the Metaphor circle in Firewheel Design’s article.

Anyone got any other ideas?

I’d be pleased to hear anybody else’s thoughts / suggestions of names. I’ll try and come up with some kind of prize for the best suggestion.

~Rick