The Denver Post Business Section ran a story January 18 about the marketing science of naming new drugs. The idea amused me, so here’s how it works and how it might apply to naming dogs.
The rules for drug names include:
- Stay under 3-4 syllables or 9 letters
- Try to imply what the drug does (like Lipitor deals with lipids)
- Pay attention to the first couple letters (sc makes people think scuzzy, pu … putrid)
- Go for something that sounds good
Then, apparently, different letters give off different feelings:
- Effectiveness (p, t, k)
- Calm/relaxing (l, r, s)
- Speed (z)
- Scientific-y (x)
Since my nickname “Rox” has an R and an X, the theory says I’m both calm and scientific. That should give those who know me well a good laugh.
And, let’s see … Lilly has 3 L’s, so she must be really calm and relaxed. That must be why we call her Silly Lilly, OR Really Silly Lilly to get the L, R, and S in there. HA! If that were the case, I’d have nothing to write about.
So, hmmm … if you wanted to name a fast & accurate agility dog, I guess something like Piz, Taz, Kez.
There’s that whole theory (a form of numerology) that says your name impacts how people perceive you, how your life unfolds. Again, not kidding, for a NY Times article last year, I interviewed some people who weren’t entirely nice to me, who told me all sorts of things about what was wrong with me and my life because my name had negative vibrations. Now, I like my name. I really do. Like it a lot actually, so you can imagine how I felt after that.
Clearly, they use a different method than the drug companies.
So, tell me … how do you choose your dogs’ names?
That is an interesting topic, neat to hear what criteria other people use.
Sometimes I’ll draw inspiration from books or singers I like. One of my dogs got her name from a song title by a singer I was into at the time she joined the family.
Some general rules I have are that it shouldn’t rhyme with “stay”, shouldn’t rhyme with the names of other dogs in the family, and should be no more than two syllables.
Indeed, the one syllable name is popular in agility. I could swear I read an article that said 2 syllables is good. I think it was a Patricia McConnell piece in The Bark a couple years ago. As I recall, she said that repeated sounds are good, like when I call Lilly … lil-lil.
I spent a lot of time with the guy they based the Ace Ventura Pet Detective movies on a few years ago, and I remember him saying that a strong consonant and a hard vowel are good. Something about distinct sounds being easy to hear, especially when you’re calling out for a lost pet.
I should start keeping a list because I hear things and think “Ooh! That’d be a good dog name,” but then quickly forget them.
Ginko, for example, came because he had such a good memory and seemed so smart as a pup. We considered a whole bunch of scientists’ names, but we settled on Ginko because of the memory supplement thing. Also, G-I-N-K-O has that B-I-N-G-O sound to it.
Ooo! One of my favorite subjects.
I name my dogs people names and I always try to have them be 2 syllables so they’re easy to call, plus they need to be names I like personally and not something you hear everyday. They also need to shorten well so that I can say it quickly on the agility course–maybe that’s why so many Border Collies have names like Buzz, Chase, Fizz, etc, you don’t get much time to say it 🙂
I actually keep a list of possible dog names as I come across them because naming my dogs seems to get harder with each one.