Uberfluff

Commercial naming is such a tricky thing.  No one really notices when you do a good job, but come up with something clunky or amusing, and people snigger at your commercials and you become a public joke.  My own pet peeve is the names pharmaceutical companies come up with for their new drugs--especially the depression and anxiety drugs, which tend to have goofy attempts to be reassuring, like "Calmalex."  (They remind me of the silly names that cosmetic companies use for the ingredients in their beauty products: "New Pantene! With Silkatide!)  Courtesy of AnneArchy, I just read Forbes' list of best and worst car names, and I now have to sympathize with the companies that just use alphanumeric names, even if they're boring.  (Though I still stand by the premise that anyone driving a car with an "X' and a number in the name is highly likely to be an asshole.)

I can't argue much with the Forbes list, which puts the Corvette, the Diablo, the Ram, and the Viper among the best car names.  You don't even have to see them to know that you want to drive a Diablo or a Viper.  (I'm not as hot on the Corvette--mostly because I think it works more from tradition that because it's an inherently good name.)  Of course, the real fun is in the bad names, which they divide into fake names, overreaching names, and weird names.  The fake names are my personal pet peeve: What is an Aztek?  Would it have killed Saturn to spell Vue correctly?  Though I think the Fiero perfectly evokes the disappointing fake sportscar that bears its name.  The overreaching names are well-categorized--the Ford Aspire always filled me with pity and reminds me of how unfortunate it is that anyone who has one probably aspires to having a better car.  But the real fun is in the weird names, where we find the Daihatsu Naked, the Honda Life Dunk, the Mazda Bongo, and the Toyota Toyopet.  I probably don't need to clarify that these are models found outside of the US (generally in Japan), and you could argue that something might be lost in the cultural differences, but how many shades of meaning can you put on the Life Dunk?