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Comment by softfalcon | Hacker News Reader

A solid product name is important for marketing, to be sure.

However, it's also a way that native English folks prejudice against foreign products that are arguably very useful and valuable.

I'm not saying you're wrong in doing what everyone does and allowing the marketing naming to sway your decision. However, I would gently suggest that you take a more critical approach and evaluate the actual product instead of letting something as simple as naming deter you from using a product.

After all, kubernetes is complicated and stupid sounding, but we can just rebrand it to "Google Cloud" or whatever and people will love it. Same can be done for /e/... they'll just call it "NextPhone" or some other catchy name.

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something named /e/ has literally no obvious means of pronunciation in any human language. This really is on a different level of stupid for a name.

You mention Kubernetes. I raise you Microsoft Kaizala. That is such a stupid name in English even though i recognise and know the language it is from - Marathi.

Naming is a delicate game and there are numerous examples of brand names that transcend language - Ikea, Nissan, Mitsubishi and so on.

but but, /ɪˈkeːa/!

edit: hmm... that settles it then: the pronunciation is simply, /e/. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/

I don't immediately understand why Kaizala is a stupid name, in or out of English.

I see how you latched onto the bad Kubernetes example and clearly ignored the “discounting non-English products” part.

I’ll grant you my Kubernetes example was bad but I have no idea what you’re getting at with Microsoft Kaizala. Probably cause I’ve never heard of it or Marathi.

I think it’s understandable that people judge a name, but at the same time, judging can be a form of discrimination. I feel it’s important to ask myself how I might be biased when I make off the cuff judgements based on just a name.

Also, I think the reason Nissan, Mitsubishi, etc transcended languages is because the product was good even if the name was different or weird for the time. People saw the product was good and didn’t care what it was called.

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