Mxyplyzyk - a Superman name that's Super Bad

Submitted by our Sous Chef, Caroline “Ruby Sneakers” Leavitt, our most outrageous inductee into the Name Shame Hall of Fame ever is a quirky Greenwich Village gift boutique named Mxyplyzyk. The store claims "the name is inspired by a character in early Superman comics." Ironically, they didn't use the actual character's name, (Mr.) Mxyzptlk, (pictured below) which is spelled differently than "Mxyplyzyk," (perhaps thinking they might head off a C&D letter from D.C. Comics), because you cannot, after all, confuse Mxyplyzyk with Myxzptlk.

Mxyplyzyk hits all the criteria to qualify for the Name Shame Hall of Fame and is a leading contender for the annual Head Scratcher™ trophy, awarded each December by Eat My Words. Here's why:

1. It’s difficult to pronounce the first time you see it (actually every time you see it)
2. It’s meaningless unless someone explains it to you (even then)
3. It's forced and unnatural sounding (oh boy)
4. It has an unnatural spelling (ya think? )
5. It’s just damn annoying (did we say oh boy yet?)

Inc. magazine briefly discussed Mxyplyzyk in an article entitled "What's in a Name"?

Here is an except from the full article:

Kevin Brynan spends a large chunk of his day explaining over and over again how to pronounce the word Mxyplyzyk--the name of his gift shop in New York City's Greenwich Village. As it happens, the name (which is pronounced "mix-ee-pliz-ik," in case you were stumped) is so long that Brynan's business card is a three-part foldout. The unusual moniker, created by a co-founder and inspired by a Superman comic book character, is fitting for a shop with unusual items like pug dog "puggy" banks and warped vinyl record serving bowls. On the other hand, it's hard to tell your friends about a store when you can't pronounce the name, and good luck finding it online. Ultimately, Brynan thinks the unusual name has been a plus, highlighting the store's quirkiness and helping to draw foot traffic. Nonetheless, he adds, "sometimes I wish we'd named it John Doe."

(Side note to all journalists: Please stop using "What's in a name?" every time you do an article about naming. It was clever about 400 years ago, but not so much anymore.)

So, welcome to The Hall Mxyplyzyk. It's a rare name that is so very wrong on every level and makes us scratch our heads super hard. However, we can give credit where credit is due. We are quite sure that every extension of the domain name was available on GoDaddy for $9.95, which is a deciding factor for many companies when choosing a name. More on that later...

Spotlight on: ABC Namebank

This is the first in a series of weekly postings that will spotlight other naming firms. We think our clients should have a choice, and clearly Eat My Words is not the only naming firm in the phone book.

Speaking of phone books, just like "ABC Carpet Cleaning," and "ABC Plumbing," who have outsmarted their competition with names that get them listed first in the Yellow Pages, the first naming firm featured is "ABC Namebank." The brainchild of "Naseem Javed, (pictured above), ABC Namebank is a naming company whose "level of specialization is unmatched by any other agency in the world."

ABC Namebank's gold-star portfolio include Telus, Intria, Zarlink, Tronicus, Duplium, Gentra, Genexxa, Celestica, Minnova, Gennum, Agricore, Pollara, Vincor and "hundreds of others," which do not appear on their website. We did find this on the website though: "Over-creativity can cause fire and damage. Don't get too creative. Do not twist, bend, stretch, exaggerate, corrupt or modify alpha-structures to their extremes in naming. It may result in difficult,confusing, unpronounceable and only silly names. Avoid overly creative solutions."

A scrolling ticker on the homepage links to Mr. Javed's appearance on CNN Business Unusual. If you don't have time to watch it, here are some highlights...

On how he named his company...
"We specialize in the alphabet, 26 letters of the alphabet. All the connotations, all the permutations, the analysis. I borrowed the first three letters for my company".

On if Coca-Cola was a good name...
"Coca Cola is a very nice name. It was developed 20-30 years ago, 50 years ago [actually 1888]. But you would not want to fly a Coca-Cola Airlines most probably it will leak all over the place".

On what some good new names were...
Sony [formed 1958], Panasonic [formed in 1955] and Microsoft [formed in 1975]

In summary:
• There are 26 letters in the alphabet
• He's never enjoyed Virgin Cola on Virgin Airlines
• There have been no good names since 1975

IS ABC NAMEBANK THE RIGHT NAMING FIRM FOR YOU?
To evaluate if a naming firm is a good fit for you, ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. Does the company have a creative name?
2. How memorable are the names in their portfolio?
3. Do they have experience in your category?
4. What do their clients say about them?
5. Do they look like they’d be fun to work with?

For more on other naming firms stay tuned for weekly spotlights in our blog or check out Our Competitors on the Eat My Words website, which provides a fresh alternative to old-school naming.

How other naming firms work: the process revealed

In a stunning admission in a recent article, Jim Singer of Namebase (the naming firm behind such gems as Any'tizers™, Tranax, and Softwin razors), revealed the company's naming process, "We sit around a table and think up good-sounding words, and then we take them apart and try to sell them to the clients afterwards with a lot of science behind it. But really we're just kind of babbling in there, and when a good one comes out, we write it down." WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? That's like saying we wait for images to show up in our toast in the morning (The Virgin Mary, President Bush, Brad Pitt) and then we run ourselves through a series of ink-blot tests ("I see a car, a butterfly, a pygmy goat!"). Then we combine the first three letters of the toast shapes with the last three letters of the object that we see in the ink blot.

A lame duck and other names that make us cringe.

Here's the latest batch of "what were they smoking?"
Head Scratchers™ for the Name Shame Hall of Fame™.
Aflac
eHarmony
Inxight Federal Systems
esurance
Vehix
xpedx
Legal Zoom
With a Twyst
Aneres (Serena spelled backwards - get it?!!!)
ALCiS (pain relief cream - ironic considering the painful name)

Many thanks to Three Girls Media, who have a knack for spotting really lame names and sending them in. Send your entries to nameshame@ eatmywords.com.

Lolita Bed for sexually active pre-teens!

LONDON (Reuters) - A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.
Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection.
In "Lolita," a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter -- but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.
Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about six until a concerned mother raised the alarm on a parenting website.
"What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either," a spokesman told British newspapers.
"We had to look it up on (online encyclopedia) Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now." Woolworths said the product had now been dropped. "Now this has been brought to our attention, the product has been removed from sale with immediate effect," the chain said.
"We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about."
NOTE: Eat My Words did not name the Lolita bed, although we think Lolita would make a great name for a line of junior prom dresses.