It depends on the company. Most of the time it’s somebody in charge fancying a certain name for no reason whatsoever and everyone around them kissing their ass about how great it is.

Sometimes it’s a little more organized and everybody at the table starts spit bowling names until somebody in charge goes yeah I like that and then they’re All falling over each other too gosh about how great it is.

Smart places hire an overpriced PR firm who does market research and then listens to their advice.

Years ago we started a new project. It was exactly the same as our existing project, but with a few minor new features and a fancy new four letter name. I wasn’t high enough on the totem pole to be included in the discussions about the project It just came to me to help do the work.

Oh great name I guess what’s it stand for? Oh uhh nothing. We just made it up. Really? It sounds like it should be a bird or something. Nope we looked it up It doesn’t have any meaning.

A few weeks later I’m driving into work a different way than I normally take and there’s a smoke stack with the damn four letter name on the side of it. They named the new product after a local company who probably named themselves after someone’s last name.

For the next couple of years every time anyone asked about the product the very first thing they asked is where the name came from. Yeah I don’t know, they just made some s*** up.