Naming Wrongs

You saw how people got all dismissive of Apple for naming their new tablet thingy "iPad," like they weren't thinking about some of the associations there. I thought about that today when I saw an ad for a new online dating site called "Zoosk." The first thing that struck me was how they pretty much were on target with the way business names today tend to sound like words from the tropical countries filtered through space alien talk and Dr. Seuss. Lots of vowels and consonants like Z, N, R, L, etc. This gives us things like "Zune," "Roomba," and so forth. But then I thought, okay, the deal with a dating site is that you want your customers to imagine a vast landscape of attractive members of whatever sex or sexes they find appealing, it's just this teeming cornucopia of potential love interests, all stunningly hot. Then I thought, do you really want the word "zoo" in your name, if that's what you're going for?