Just a little Cooqy

Before beginning a line of code of what was to become Cooqy, I had to pick a name for the “thing” I was about to create. I remember agonizing over the name for a full week due to finding an available dot-com name. It truly is a matter of naming your service based on what’s available. My firm requirements for the name were:

1. Dot-com or bust
2. 5 letters or less
3. Had to have zero Google search results
4. Had to be playful, fun, and inviting

Re: #3, I wanted to be able to track the growth and spread of the new service. [As of today, Cooqy comes up with 35,000 Google search results. This blog is partly an attempt to get that number climbing higher.]

There is a lot of theory behind naming things. Linguistics and phonetics control how words make us feel. Early on I decided to mutate existing words rather than contriving a word like “Xerox”. This was mainly due to a futile attempt to use a random name generator in hopes of finding a pleasant contrived word. I was very much against anything that was “AuctionX”. AuctionWorks, AuctionChamp, etc. Besides, most of those names are taken anyway, too. Anyway, I had already gone down that path with AuctionVision I started in 2003.

Trying to find an available 5-letter (or less) dot-com name is maddening. If you want to waste many hours of your life, just try to find an available dot-com name 5 letters or less. It almost seems that every possible combination of letters has been already taken.

I really don’t remember how or why I started muting the word “cookie” into Cooqy. I remember that I wanted something fun to say. I also remember wanting something people would let into their homes…something like Grandma’s Home Cooking, all warm and welcoming. Being a consumer-oriented service, this was top on my mind. Having a name starting near the top of the alphabet was another consideration in the mix…the reason I didn’t start the word with a “K”, besides not wanting to look like “kooky”.

Actually, the word Cooqy has its problems that I recognized right off the bat. The lower case “Q” is frequently (always?) mistaken for a “G”. I decided to live with the consequences. I kinda liked the symmetry of the lowercase O-O-Q when it was drawn into a logo. The overall roundness of the logo enhances the playfulness, which the font accents. What I didn’t expect was how many people cannot pronounce the word correctly…eBay Radio did a segment this summer and the fellow just stumbled all over it for like 20 seconds, finally calling it “Cook-kwee”. Was good for a laugh, which made the segment stand out on the broadcast that otherwise didn’t have any laughs.

I was not surprised to find Cooqy #3 on this list of “stupidly named Web 2.0 web sites”. (I was kinda disappointed not to be #1…I’ll take the promotion to help drive traffic!)

How passionate am I about the name today? Actually, I’m on the fence. At the time I named Cooqy I was in a rush to get the development started, so when I discovered Cooqy met my minimum requirements I grabbed it and moved on to the next issue.

Would I change the name tomorrow? Wow, I don’t know. Cooqy’s metrics are starting to grow at a good clip (more than doubling month-over-month), so I’m already up against a fair bit of name recognition. I won’t let that be a fatal mindset, however. Let me put it this way: if I knew with certainty that a different name alone would catapult Cooqy higher, then by all means YES! On the other hand, the uniqueness and issues with the name also play into its charm and personality.

When I query our customers, they say they like it well enough. What do you think, Hot or Not?