The Name Game

I have always been fascinated at how people and even things get their names.  My first name, for instance, is the middle name of one of my uncles. My own middle name - Lee - is the middle of my mother. I have other relatives whose names also come from their parents and close relatives. The same is true for many people, in fact. Even objects have been known to originate from people. One of the more famous examples is the Edsel, the Ford Motor Company's disaster of an automobile introduced in the 1950s that was named after the son of Henry Ford. (For the record, even though the car did not sell well at all, at no time was this blamed on its name.)


Historically, going back to the beginning of man, to this day no one is certain how animals came to be identified. Who or what named the rabbit a rabbit? How did the coyote come by its name? The list goes on and on. There are theories, of course, as to how this came to be, but interestingly no hard evidenced has ever been uncovered to give us insight into what is actually an important part of our lives. One reason is that knowing the name of objects and animals helps make communication for all of so much easier. For instance, it is so much easier to call the police at 2 a.m. to complain, "The neighbor's dog is barking" than it is to say, "The neighbor's hairy creature with a long nose and sharp teeth is keeping me awake."


Nowadays, there are folks in the communication business who specialize in coming up with names of things. In a recent article in The New York Times Sunday Magazine (January 18, 2015), the process pharmaceutical companies follow to come up with names of new drugs was described as being quite elaborate. In this case, namers have the challenge of coming up with names that do not sound like any other drug so as to avoid confusing their users. The challenge for this special brand of professional communicators is to come up with names that are both different, yet not so off the wall as to be off-putting or laughable. With such things as money and reputation on the line, the name game often is not such a game after all.