Naming products IS HARD. But sometimes you ask yourself “What were they thinking?”.
What is the most cringe worthy product name you remember from a library product or service? Bonus points if you can dig up an old logo or screenshot.
Keep it fun and lighthearted. No personal attacks or name calling of CEOs, product managers, etc.
Look, I’m not even 100% sure this is true. But every time I looked up a logo for Polaris Leap… I’d get this.
Let’s just say that, no matter if it was for Polaris Leap or something different, mistakes were made.
Oh, it was for Polaris Leap alright. I feel like they even had a name for the jumping person.
I hate to admit it, but the current star logo for Polaris always reminds me of this episode of the TV show Community. Be careful watching this, you may never be able to unsee the resemblance yourself: https://youtu.be/HP1Atb8nAGY?t=16
Again, naming products and creating logos is TOUGH stuff.
I’ve long advocated for the “Team of 11 year olds” approach to marketing. It’s a simple system where you employ five to ten 11 year old kids and their job is to look at any logo you intend to show to the public. If any one of the kids snickers, giggles, or otherwise laughs at the logo - you are not allowed to ask why, it will compromise the process. All you can do is take the logo back to the design team and say “Nope, something’s funny here and we’ve gotta redesign it.”
We’ve been using Shoutbomb for years and have occasionally received complaints about how alarming that name can seem.
Right?! Shoutbomb sounds like a show on the old-school Nickelodeon channel. Something that came on in between You Can’t Do That on Television and Out of Control.
iBistro
This product name gets me flagged by our web filtering system every time. We don’t use it but I am always trying to stay informed on product changes.
Name change is a must here. 
HIP - Horizon Information Portal which was the replacement name the Dynix iPAC. I believe they ran into a problem with that name and Apple.
Spydus - lets just say the name made our librarians feel uneasy.
The name just feels like something that ought to be an evil black ops squad in some Bond knock-off film.