Have you ever thought about how startup names and Pokèmon names pretty much sound the same?
In fact, most of the time Pokèmon names and startup names go by the same three requirements.
A startup name or a Pokèmon name needs to be:
- Very hard to pronounce
Try reading a list of MassChallenge participants and been faced with an intelligible cluster of letters? It was the same thing for me with the Pokèdex.
Have you ever wondered why a startup has no vowels and a lot of Xs, Ys, and Zs? Same thing with Pokèmon.
Have you ever been shamed by your coworkers for pronouncing a startup completely wrong? I don't know exactly how many elementary school arguments I had about Pokèmon names, but it's a double-digit number.
I rest my case.
2. A pun or play on words
Smoodi: it's smoothie and moody together, get it? A lot of startups take what they do, and then make turn it into a cute little pun. Sometimes they're clever, sometimes they're not: it's all over the place. Pokèmon are the same way. Sometimes you have really good ones. For example, Bewear is a bear that you're supposed to beware of. But there are also ones like Ekans, whose name is just snake backward.
3. Something that sounds vaguely threatening but also futuristic and cool
Armored Things sounds really cool because of the armored part, but also very threatening because we don't know exactly what the "things" are. Ignite Mental Health is cool when you think about it in terms of revolutionizing the mental health field, but also scary because it sounds like it wants to set fire to your mental health. And Eager Labs is just vaguely threatening because...what are they eager about, exactly? Pokèmon are the same way. Charizard sounds cool, but it also sounds like a scary flaming lizard.
Because they're the same, Pokèmon and startup names are very hard to tell apart.
