Alan Siegel On Branding and Clear Communications by Louis J. Slovinsky

A Short History of Modern Naming: since the 1800s, most businesses in America were named for their founders. Between World War I and the mid-twentieth century, companies tried to project "dominance" with descriptive names on horizontal industrial buildings (General Motors, et al). When these proved unreadable on office towers and products, a corporate Esperanto of initials and acronyms evolved. Made-up names, frequently with no apparent meaning, spread into global markets, e.g., Sony and Kodak. Countless names were spawned by deregulation of telecommunications and other industries, mergers and acquisitions, and the dot-com boom. The appetite for trendy, off-beat names on the Internet remains insatiable.