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Palm’s Pre: Praying for Success
Best ‘Global Aptonyms’ of 2008
Palm’s Pre: Praying for Success
By Jim Romano
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Palm announced its new competitor to the iPhone, the ‘Pre™,’ written wherever possible with a bar over the “e” to elongate it.
Presumably that will help English speakers to keep from ‘pray’-ing it, and harks to its predecessor, the Treo (also with a bar over the ‘e’), which rhymes with the Kingston Trio, not the Belafonte Day-o.
The concept seems to be that the Palm Pre is ‘always thinking ahead to make your life easier,’ a connection that speaks to a benefit in short supply these days. After all, who has time to think ahead or plan? If we do, then it’s a given that we need a device of some kind to help us do it.
Other benefits of the Pre seem to be built around the user experience: notifications that don’t interrupt your train of thought, applications that serve you information without having to work for it, and the ability to start a new conversation in just one touch.
What does all this have to do with the ‘pre-’ prefix? Will this blip of a name really suggest thinking ahead? Pre’s carrier is Sprint, which is also trying to get a leg up on the competition by rebranding their own service from the Now Network™ to Sprint Ahead™.
This migratory trend—from the present to the future, from the now to the next, from thinking to intuiting—does indeed bode well for users who are increasingly reliant on technology to do the heavy lifting of keeping us organized and ahead of the curve.
Will the Pre resonate as a moniker for such a task? With Palm’s sales slipping and the iPhone carrying the standard for usercentric technology, Palm is certainly pre-ing the answer is yes.
Best ‘Global Aptonyms’ of 2008
By Jim Romano
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As we approach the end of 2008, the media is filled with reflections of the past year and “Best of” lists. Not to be outdone, we’ve compiled our own list of the best Global Aptonyms of 2008.
What’s a global aptonym? Well, an aptonym is a name that is perfectly suited for the person, such as Sonya Shears, the hairdresser, or magazine fact-checker Paige Worthy.
In our globalized media culture, the potential for deliciously ironic aptonyms across languages and cultures is that much greater.
So here are people in the news in 2008 whose names, in one language or another, are truly better than fiction.
1) Bernard Madoff (pronounced made-off). English is now the official language of the Ponzi scheme, and the aptonymic Madoff takes the cake as the King of Con.
2) Usain Bolt. This Jamaican sprinter captured the world’s attention as well as two gold medals at the Summer Games in Beijing. The aptly-named Bolt also captured the media’s attention, which nicknamed him “Lightning Bolt” and “Bolt from the blue”. Usain’s pet name, according to his grandmother, was ‘Vijay,’ a Hindi word/name meaning ‘victory.’
3) Derek Jeter. Captain of the Yankees since 2003 and nine-time All Star shortstop, Jeter (whose name means “throw” in French) delivered a sub-par 2008. But it’s not time to bid him adieu yet—he’ll be back in ‘09.
4) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The British slang term “to blag” means “to lie, or use clever talk with profit as an objective, to wheedle or persuade for gain.” How apt for this big-banged braggadocio who was allegedly caught on tape bartering for President-elect Obama’s Senate seat.
5) Judge Judge. In July of this year, Sir Igor Judge became Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He joins the likes of the great aponymic appellate judge Learned Hand (1872-1961).
6) North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il (김정일) was mysteriously missing and reported to be gravely, well, not well, over several months in 2008. Perhaps an aptonym of circumstance?
7) Steven Greenhouse. This New York Times reporter wrote about the growing green business movement. Thanks to Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner, who tracks aptonyms in his NYT blog.
… and two persons whose names became household aptonyms in 2008:
8) Carlo Ponzi (1882-1949), the padrino of the pyramid scheme. While the pyramid scheme pre-dated Ponzi, his name became synonymous with it, and his occupation is listed in Wikipedia as “con man” (whereas Bernard Madoff’s occupation is listed as “financial services, investment management.”
9) Sam Maverick. This nineteenth-century Texan is the source of the term “maverick,” referring to someone who’s independent-minded. He refused to brand his cattle, giving rise to the impression that he was going his own way. The term became the “brand” of the McCain-Palin Presidential campaign, and was parodied () by Tina Fey.
Other candidates for best aptonyms of the year? Though 2008 draws to a close, the list is still open! Email them to us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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?