Simpana - its all there in the name

I’ve often wondered about product names.  Who actually thinks of them and what they actually mean?  Oh and the fact that its actually somebody’s profession sitting around thinking of them.  

Just a couple that immediately spring to mind – Tagmastore, Symmetrix, Silkworm, Spherion, Axiom……..  and now “simpana”.

OK, some of them make sense such as a lot of the Brocade ones.  I remember being amazed the first time I made the connection between a lot of the Brocade product names (Silkworm, LOOM, BLOOM….) and fabrics, the material kind.  Clever!

Anyway, I just happened to ask a Commvault guy today why the name change from Quinetix to Simpana and what Simpana actually meant.  He didn’t know but said that he had been sent an email explaining the new name but hadn’t actually bothered reading it – obviously has more of a life than me.  He said he would look for the email when he had a chance, but I thought Id just google it anyway.  And here’s what I got ….

From http://clothing.novica.com –

“……Knitted of fine alpaca wool, it takes its name Simpana from the Aymara word for women's hair adornments……”

So Commvault is naming its flagship product after native American Indian (Aymaras) women’s hair adornments – see the storage connection?  Thought not ;-)

Kind of like those Chinese art tattoos that you see people with – oh this means “courage” or this means “honour” when actually they probably mean “idiot” and “pratt”.

Wonder how much Commvault paid somebody to come up with that name.

That said, the name Rupturedmonkey has some people scratching their heads ;-)

Nigel