Yet despite the best efforts of both the USPTO and the FDA, which rejects some 1/3 of proposed new drug names because they sound too much like existing medications, the US Pharmacopeia maintains a list of more than 1,750 drug names that have been confused with one another (the printable list dates from 2004).

Changing all of those names (or even half of them) is impractical. Many have been in use for decades, and it's no surprise if someone mistakes a newer or less common drug name for that of something more familiar. Among those who study ancient manuscripts, this is known as the lectio difficilior potior, because the mistake so rarely happens the other way around. You've probably noticed something similar when the spell-checker wants to correct an unusual word or name you've used to something it recognizes.

So what's to be done, apart from taking greater care in the naming of new drugs? Electronic prescribing, which bypasses the famously poor handwriting of doctors, may be some help, but there's that spell-checker problem. Consumer Reports advocates having your doctor include both generic and brand names, as well as the drug's purpose, on the prescription form.

Now healthcare service iGuard proposes to send out e-mail alerts to patients about possible drug name confusions. And speaking of confusing names, that's iGuard.org, not the iGuard security camera company...

Technorati Tags: Prescription Drugs, Drug Naming, Prescription Drug Confusion, iGuard, USPTO, FDA

The world already knows the Chrome name and frankly, almost anything with the name Google behind it is going to pique our curiosity, it is a brand that appeals to anyone with a computer.

Still, Chrome?

It sounds like a fragrance for men. Google claims that it refers to the typical bells and whistles around browsers, with the idea being to "minimize chrome."

Regardless, it is a name that has seen a lot of use in the XUL, "an XML user interface markup language developed by the Mozilla project."

Most of the features on Chrome have pretty standard names, although it does feature an "incognito mode" that is similar to Microsoft's new InPrivate browsing feature. Mozilla is also working on a similar feature and Safari already has a setting simply called "Privacy" for Mac OS.

Computer browsers all have odd names but I think this one is possibly a little impractical because it has been used before and because it is so jarring. "Google" is a funky word we've never seen before, but "Chrome" is not.

Nonetheless, I'm curious, and that's half the battle won for Google. And as a great blog post at Nature and Cyberspace mentions, this is a fabulous word but "this browser name is loaded with metaphors, both good and bad."

I think this is an example of "inside baseball" naming.

Technorati Tags: Chrome, Google, Firefox, Mozilla, InPrivate, Incognito Mode, IE8

The two examples cited in the article are "Cloud Computing," which Dell unsuccessfully tried to trademark, and "Live Mesh," which Microsoft is currently trying to trademark.

Cloud Computing, an innovative offsite Internet service, is a great name because it speaks to the so-called "computer cloud" (all the devices out there that access the Internet). It's also a term that has been floating around the geek world for some time.

Live Mesh, on the other hand, is a super application that is meant to keep all of your web devices in sync, although it looks like the term Open Mesh is already in use.

It looks to me like tech companies, are discovering that names are being registered faster than ever before, especially after running into trademark issues on products that customers might have a hard time understanding, much less buying. Never mind the difficulty of "dot-whatevers," we're seeing a virtual race to get names into the books before the product development is even finished.

This is nothing new, of course. Companies in more traditional fields are already borrowing from different markets of brand naming to get their own trademarks. For example, "Mango" is a fashion line and there is a "Virgin" cola out there alongside the airline.

Business Line in India asks "Will we soon have motorcars called Sweat and deodorants named Cylinder & Piston?"

Of course we will. Names from different categories is one of the factors that helps keep product and brand naming interesting.

Technorati Tags: Trademark, Cloud Computing, Live Mesh, Open Mesh, Virgin Cola, Mango Fashion Line, Internet Naming, Fashion Naming

Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits is changing its name to Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and will also unveil a new logo, tagline and ad campaign, but will continue on without a possessive apostrophe, which the founder once claimed he was "too poor" to afford.

The new name allows Popeyes to offer a broader menu than just chicken, to a slightly higher paying clientele. It also "reminds customers of the labor that goes into creating the brand's authentic taste."

Apparently, Popeyes was not originally named after the lovable cartoon sailor, but actually after Popeye Doyle, the drunken, brawling character Gene Hackman plays in the French Connection. It was only later that the company moved to successfully acquire rights to Popeye the Sailor. The problem is that both characters are becoming distant memories to the under thirty crowd and might in fact lead to the "P" in the middle of the new logo becoming all that remains of Popeyes original brand name.

That said, Popeye may actually be a name that has dubious value. Aside from the fact that it was the name of an ill fated missile, it also has some interesting literary allusions.

For one, John Ashberry's famous poem speaks of a Popeye who was "forced to leave the country."

But most notable, Popeye is the name of one of Faulkner's most notorious villains, a character inspired by Popeye Pumphrey, a real-life criminal during the 1920s in Memphis.

Technorati Tags: Popeyes, Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, New Logo, Popeye Doyle, Popeye the Sailor, Brand Naming, Company Naming

This year we saw multi-national brand names face stiff competition from Chinese brand names nobody had heard of. The overall winner, according to the Huffington Post, was Coke and its "shuang qi lai - "refreshment rising" tagline. However, Adidas and its "Impossible Is Nothing" campaign was a also a success, while GE managed to communicate its new "green" image with some flair.

The point is that China wanted to use the Olympics to showcase the country along with the country's brand names. China has what is called "high product acceptance with low global brand recognition." However, the Huffington Post notes that some Chinese companies really did stand out during this year's Olympics: Lenovo moved into the premier brand space, as did "non-official" brand names, such as China' s Merchant bank which just happens to have the same tagline (he, or "harmony" ) as the theme of the opening ceremony.

Various athletric gear brand names also had their day in the sun: like Nike (whom we all know) and Li Ning and Anta (whom we do not). Li Ning is the name of the fellow who lit the torch during the opening ceremony, but is also conveniently the brand name of an athletic apparel company.

Guerilla brand name promotion was at an all time high this year. Case in point was Nike's capitalization on hurdler Liu Xiang's heartbreaking defeat. Nike quickly ran an ad that said "Love sport even when it breaks your heart."

Kinesio got some attention (they make the athletic tape that beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh uses), as did Facebook (who owes Phelps a thank you for mentioning how many friends he has).

Tim Delaney reckons that the average sponsorship costs around $100 million all included and that regular sponsorship still cannot be beat in developing markets, but in mature markets, where wise guys like Wasatch Beer can dub themselves "Unofficial Beer of the 2002 Winter Games" you may want to think twice before paying to be the official sponsor.

This might explain why 60% of Chinese people polled thought that Pepsi, not Coke (who paid $78 million for the privilege), was the official Olympic drink.

Technorat Tags: Olympics, Coke, Chinese Brands, Guerilla Brand Name Promotion, Li Ning, Liu Xiang, Michael Phelps, Nike, Wasatch Beer, Pepsi, Sponsorship, Kinesio, Adidas, GE, Love Sport

The cost of introducing new brand names into the market can be even more frightening than resurrecting the dead, and this has meant that some brands are walking among us that we once believed to be buried.

Eagle Snacks is one example. Surprisingly, 6 out of 10 adults remember the brand. It would cost between $300 and $500 million to get those types of numbers with a new snacks brand, so welcome back, Eagle Snacks.

But there also tends to be a new twist on the beloved brand names that keep resurfacing. Eagle Snacks has added brand extensions named Bursts and Poppers, while the Alka-Seltzer brand has been revived with its own extension called Wake-Up Call.

Even credit card branding has ghost brands that seem to come back as sub-brands or are kept alive, marketed to select groups.

Old car brands might be floating over to Europe and Asia, specifically Oldsmobile, Le Sabre, Park Avenue and Century.

In addition, Miller is reviving its "Great Taste, Less Filling" ads.

But the real brand naming comeback of the year is Hydrox cookies, which is a brand that simply will not die thanks to avid consumer activism.

This means thousands of phone calls, petitions and, of course, an online campaign that was started by one loyal cookie fan. Other bloggers have even asked Kellogg's to start a Hydrox-Oreo taste test.

More and more brand naming is getting into the hands of people who just will not let a good brand RIP.

Technorati Tags: Eagle Snacks, Miller, Hydrox Cookies, Car Brands, Ghost Brands

The DEWmocracy initiative has been a major consumer-driven campaign that collected 350,000 votes (Voltage received 42% of them). Around 1.6 million people visited the site to help design the product, watch indy movies and play games, all of which ultimately made Voltage the "people's Dew" according to one Pepsi executive.

This stuff looks pretty good although there are some bloggers who don't share my enthusiasm.

Voltage and other Mountain Dew brand extensions including Dew's Code Red, Live Wire and Baja Blast, as well as this extensive naming competition, are going to elevate the Mountain Dew brand, which is already known as the best drink to buy when studying late at night.

But this initiative is yet another indicator that some branding is going to depend more and more on social media than it has in the past.

Technorati Tags: DEWmocracy, Mountain Dew Voltage, Code Red, Live Wire, Baja Blast, Brand Name Extension, Voltage, People's DEW

There have been irritated grumblings in the blogosphere about the fact that Pontiac actually started with this name, and after 80,000 entries and 18,000 distinct names were submitted, decided to stick with it.

GM claims it "thought long and hard about El Camino," but also noticed a trend in the submissions towards simpler names.

The G8 ST is certainly not the worst names out there, but it does end a big naming contest with a whimper. (The prize was given at random to one of the entrants).

I think that there are a few things that we can take away here.

First of all, truck naming is very difficult. 18,000 names are actually not that many, considering that many of them (like Truck Norris, for example) would be unusable in addition to the thousands of others that would already be taken.

Secondly, taking a name like El Camino out of mothballs might work from a nostalgic point of view but not from a sales perspective. Times have simply changed since the days of the Diablo, the Caballero and other Spanish inspired names.

Fact is, alphanumeric vehicle naming is here to stay, even if people think that the Pontiac G8 ST GXP sounds like "alphabet soup."

Technorati Tags: Pontiac, Pontiac G8 ST, El Camino, Truck Norris, Tame the Name Contest

Not only do store brands need the same finesse as regular brands, but as store brands get more popular, they may find themselves growing beyond their home stores.

Safeway's "O Organics" and "Eating Right" brands are really a case in point, and are taking on Whole Foods on its own turf. O for Organics is looking for $400 million in sales and isn't really all that cheap, it's just less expensive than its nearest competitor.

Consumer's rising comfort level with generic grocery naming is likely to spread to generic drugs as well. This means that private labels are going to have to up their game.

According to a WPP report, private label penetration is growing globally at 5% per year.

In Germany and the UK, private labels now count for almost 50% of all products sold, but the United States it's 17% and growing at 7% a year.

It seems to me that the opportunities for naming and branding are coming from both directions: generics will want to use really sophisticated naming practices to keep up the attack and their competitors are going to have to find distinctive brand names to stop the onslaught.

One look at "The Eating Right" and "O Organics" range of products demonstrates that store brands are doing their marketing homework. People don't just buy these because their cheap: they buy them because there is some really enticing brand names and brand quality.

Technorati Tags: Store Brands, Safeway, Kroger, Supervalu, O Organics, Eating Right, WPP Report, Generic Drugs, Private Label

However, one naming component will remain the same for Intel's new generation of chips. At least the newest versions will retain the "Core" brand name.

Now, lets get this straight.  The new Intel Core i7 replaces the chip codenamed Nehalem, a chip actually named after a river in Oregon.

The adoption of the Core name is a good idea, but the appending of a meaningless i7 moniker is only going to lead Intel down a slippery slope of senseless naming.

The problem here is that Intel spins off new versions of its products so quickly (there are already two different colored logos to differentiate the "regular" from the "Extreme Edition" models). It is this speed that has shifted consumer focus from its company naming to its product naming.

Yes, it is wise naming strategy to use the recognizable "Core" brand across the board, but I'm one of those people who still recall when it was a good thing that Intel was "Inside." 

Intel has now left ten million computer salespeople out in the cold after admitting that they do not want there to be any meaning behind their product naming, leaving it up to the computer sales force to explain to confused customers fifty times a day that i7 means "nothing," its actually just the upgraded Core 2 Duo.

Since Intel isn't defining the meaning between i7, I will.

• Is it like the magnificent 7, but in this case it's the Intel magnificent 7?
• Was the development of this chip completed in July, the 7th month of the year?
• Did 7 engineers work on it for 7 years?
• Or does Intel have long-term plans of competing with Apple's iPhone? (just kidding of course).
• Or perhaps the lower case "i" was a typo. You may be aware that the distance between the pitchers mound and the batter in baseball is 60' 6''. It was supposed to be 60' 0'', but someone misread the plans.

Technorati Tags: Intel, Core, Core 2 Duo, Core i7, Pentium, Intel Inside, Computer, Intel Core i7

The company did not depart gracefully in 1958 and the car is not what one might describe as beautiful. So, it is possible that a better option would be purchasing the Duesenberg brand name, which comes with plans for some nifty looking cars as well as the Estate golf cart, all of which would give you some Jay Gatsby, "roaring twenties" street cred.

It is interesting to note that the expression "it's a doozy" is based upon the Duesenberg brand name, but it seems that the intervening decades since Duesneberg's collapse in 1929 has made this expression rather negative; one only hears "it's a doozy" when talking about some horrible mistake.

Technorati Tags: Packard, Duesenberg, Classic Car Brands, Doozy

Spanx makes shapewear, which translates to pantyhouse, bras and girdles to the rest of us. Now, I know that no woman under the age of 80 wants to wear a girdle anymore, but shapewear, well, that's a different story!

And pantyhose? Forget it.

But a "Slim Cognito Mid-Thigh Body Suit" is a completely different matter . . .

This product includes something known as The Great Divide, which, well, let's just say it's flattering to a woman's posterior.

If that's not your thing, how about High Power control pants, favored by the likes of Madonna and Gwyneth. What modern woman doesn't want more power and control in her life?

Spanx also offers "super slimming smoothing power" and assures buyers by saying "don't worry, we've got your butt covered."

This company, which is something of a start up miracle, doesn't even sell bras, they sell the "Bra-llelujah 'All-Hosiery' comfort bra."

Yes, the name is saucy and the product is pure retro, but it is a textbook case (possibly the textbook case) of how reframing a "dead" product with good naming can create a new market.

Hosiery and girdle makers everywhere take note, Spanx just spanked you.

Technorati Tags: Spanx, Shapewear, Slim Cognito Mid-Thigh Body Suit, Bra-llelujah, Fashion, Women, Spanx, Product Naming

First we had cybersquatting: the greedy and foresighted would buy domain names like CocaCola.com long before the company that had trademarked that name even thought of going online, then charged the company an exorbitant amount to buy the domain from them.

And then there was phishing, the act of luring consumers to sites that look like eBay, PayPal, or their bank, and asking for all their login information, including to Social Security number and mother's maiden name.

Now, with new social networks and Web 2.0 services springing up every day, there are more and more places that a company either needs to be or to monitor in order to protect itself from "brandjacking."

The latest victim of this form of brand impersonation is ExxonMobil. Due to the high-profile coverage of Comcast's presence on the microblogging platform Twitter, the creation of a Twitter account with the handle "ExxonMobilCorp" was more plausible than it would have been six months ago, even if some of the 140-character messages sent by "Janet" seemed off key.

If you've taken the trouble to trademark a company name or product name and build up a brand, then it's worth making sure that you're the one to put that name on the social media map and register as a user with the social networks.

Even if you never use the account, at least no one else will be able to abuse your good name.

Technorati Tags: ExxonMobil, Trademark, Cybersquatting, Social Networks, Web 2.0, Brandjacking, Phishing, ExxonMobilCorp, Brand Impersonation, Registered Name

These green receipts allow customers to come back to the store after 2 PM to get a $2 (half price) grande cold drink.

What interests me is the fact that a deft, elegant marketing move like this allows Starbucks to offer value to customers without using that particular word; or the words sale, cheap, or half-price."

With Treat Receipts, Starbucks is not giving out cheap cold java, they are rewarding loyal customers with a treat, and that small difference reframes the offering beautifully.

However, I do not think this will be a game changer for the struggling giant, although it is a great way to preserve the brand's equity in the face of mounting financial pressures.

As Starbucks continues its fight to stay afloat amidst the slowing economy, its main naming and branding challenge for the next year or so becomes getting rid of its image as a daily indulgence. I've read many articles making the point that you can save enough money to put the kids through school, pay off the mortgage or even settle the credit card debt simply by skipping Starbucks and making your own coffee.

I cannot speak to the validity of these claims, but the Treat Receipt offers loyal customers more value without trying to reposition Starbucks' brand name as a budget or low cost option.

Now that's a real treat.

Technorati Tags: Starbucks, Treat Receipt, Coffee, Grande, Green Receipt, Starbucks Coffee Company

Purevia's chief component is a substance called stevia, which Coke has been working on with agribusiness giant Cargill for a new brand name beverage called Truvia.

Coke, until recently, called the Cargill inspired product by its "trade name" Rebiana.

Confused yet?

Stevia based sweeteners are derived from a Latin American plant in the chrysanthemum family which has been used in cultures for centuries.

However, the FDA will not allow stevia to be used as a sweetener in its traditional form, hence the race between the two cola giants to create a stevia based sweetener that can be sold as a tabletop sweetener and used in a handful of products.

So, for the record, we have stevia, which is a "dietary supplement" according to the FDA, but is not an additive. Truvia and Purevia are chemical derivatives of stevia and are additives that have not yet been approved by the FDA, but should be soon.

Truvia was launched recently amidst some fanfare in hope's of taking the wind out of its chief competitor's sails, but . . .

Now, a new drink called--wait for it--Zevia has beaten them both in the stevia stakes, telling the world that it is "the first stevia based product to offer a truly all natural alternative to artificially sweetened diet sodas." To add insult to injury, one Zevia executive has said that he is concerned that "Truvia and Purevia have strikingly similar names to Zevia which may result in consumer confusion."

So, we have a brand name called Zevia using stevia to conquer Purevia and Truvia, both created by different companies that used stevia (although one company sometimes called its additive Rebiana).

One of these is a dietary supplement, one is an additive, both can be canned and sold. Nothing that is in Zevia can be used as a tabletop sweetener, however, Purevia and Truvia get that privilege. The stevia that is in Zevia, however, can be used anytime you wish, so long as you don't think of it as a sweetner (although it is indeed sweet).

So consider yourself warned: finding stevia in the USA will be hard (thanks to the FDA), but Zevia, Truvia and Purevia are easy to find.

From a name development standpoint, this is one can happen to a client, a naming company, or us when the same morpheme root (via) is used to create a brand name. It is unusual, but it does happen. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out with trademark law considerations.

I'm sensing that there will be tremendous amount of consumer confusion here.

Technorati Tags: Truvia, Purevia, Zevia, Pepsi, Coke, Dietary Supplement, Beverage, Artificial Sweetener