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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Maybe a good time to change the name as well? Funny names are cute and all but if you want to gain mainstream acceptance for your database product CockroachDB is not the one I would have picked.

Downvoters: if you think names for products do not matter you are mistaken.

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Maybe you should use BikeshedDB [0] instead?

[0] https://github.com/tschottdorf/bikesheddb

> if you want to gain mainstream acceptance for your database product

They've been around for several years and have had millions of dollars in funding. If you're going to argue that their name is holding them back from mainstream acceptance, first you should establish that they don't already have that.

If funding was a measure of success Theranos would be A-ok.

who said anything about success? Or are you arguing that Theranos’s name held it back from mainstream acceptance? Otherwise, why did you bring it up?

> Downvoters: if you think names for products do not matter you are mistaken.

Disagreeing with your particular opinions on a particular name doesn't imply a belief that names don't matter.

You shouldn't downvote to disagree!

In fairness I didn't vote on that post, but I was assuming downvotes were for disagreement.

The belief that names are particularly important to corporate software adoption and that CockroachDB is a good name for such a purpose is probably pretty rare.

I don't care one way or the other about the name. But if you're marketing directly to engineers who want a resilient solution, there's probably an argument to be made.

I think it would be a bad name for a consumer product but this isn’t a consumer product. CockroachDB invokes a feeling of resilience which is perfect for marketing to engineers.

>CockroachDB is not the one I would have picked.

What would you have picked, master namer? What criteria determines what the mainstream will accept? "Mongo" seems like a bit of a funny name to me, but they seem to be doing alright... What makes Mongo okay but Cockroach not?

Apple is a cute name. Does it pass your test?

^ nice 'Name of the Wind' reference

I think this needs to be added to the guidelines as a flame-bait topic. Every single CockroachDB post devolves into bickering about whether it is a good or bad name, and I can't stop thinking about that one episode of the Dilbert TV cartoon[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Gdu0OBXX0

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