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From the Garden of Naming Delights: Dell’s “Adamo”?
By Jim Romano
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The recent trend of naming kids after major products or brands continues unabated. Despite the enduring prevalence of Jacob and Michael, Emily and Isabella, parents have been increasingly opting for posh brand names for their precious offspring.
Consider the rise of car names (Chevy and Camry for boys, Lexus and Porsche for girls) or fragrances (Obsession, Chanel). These trends have been in evidence since Prof. Cleveland Evans studied the US Social Security records for 2000.
Since then, another naming trend has emerged: “Americans are now selecting from a global smorgasbord of names,” according to Laura Wattenberg. Popular languages and cultures to draw from include Celtic traditions (such as the Irish name Aidan, the Scottish Cameron, and Welsh Dylan), Arabic (Aaliyah), and Italian (Giovanni, Dario).
What do you get when marketers reverse-engineer these trends? A human name for a product, with an Italian twist at the end: Adamo, the latest offering from Dell that is intended to compete with the MacBook Air.
The name’s not official yet, despite a reference by The New York Times. But after a long run of bullish luxury branding of everything, including kids, perhaps this signals a recessionary reversal of giving our technology a human name. Despite the tough times, there may be a silver lining when we see an effort to put a human name on a brand, rather than naming humans after brands.
Can anybody say Hal?
