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Comment by jerrre | Hacker News Reader

Might be a nice step towards rebranding for a bigger audience? I use DDG as a default search engine, but the name doesn't roll off the tongue nicely at all...

Edit: It doesn't roll of my fingers either, I didn't even type out the full name...

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I love DuckDuckGo and use it on all my devices, but, WOW what a horrible name/branding. What were they thinking?

Every time I mention/recommend it to someone the response is always a blank stare followed by something along the lines of “I would never use that if only to avoid that horrible name / brand URL”. And I can’t say I blame them.

Maybe it's a geographic thing?

I feel like anyone who grew up in a region where duck, duck goose was a common game for children to play wouldn't be too confused about the name.

Not that being confused about the name or disliking it is a bad thing. But I like the name, and it's part of the reason I chose to start using DDG.

If they changed it to something more generic, I'd be less likely to keep using it because I'd feel less of a connection to the brand. If I'm going to use something that generic and corporate, then Binging sounds more fun than Ducking.

I do realize that potentially losing me as a user doesn't mean this would be a bad move for DDG overall.

I’d never heard about the game until I started using DDG, and ducks are definitely a thing in the UK.

Right, that's why I think familiarity with the game might be geographic - it seems like one of those games that's played in some places, but not others.

Or it could also be the case that the same game is played, but with a different name. Tracing the etymology of the name would be pretty interesting. As you mentioned, the game of duck duck goose is unheard of in many places that have plenty of ducks and geese.

I'm not a native English speaker and "duck duck go" doesn't evoke anything at all to me. I learned the reference from your comment even though I've been using DDG for years.

If they want to expand to non-English speaking countries having a long and somewhat complicated name like "duckduckgo" seems like a liability.

You could certainly be right!

Maybe it is one of those names that could endear your company to a certain audience, but alienate it to a wider audience.

I am a native English speaker, and I played duck duck goose as a kid, and I didn't make the connection until just now.

Part of the reason I use Bing is the name is nicer in my head. Also the background images are cool (it's my homepage).

I always thought it'd be amusing if their logo was a goose instead of a duck...

I played the game as a child, and so the reference wasn’t lost on me the first time I encountered DuckDuckGo – yet I recall my first reaction being “wow, what a clumsy, awkward name.”

It’s cute, but it’s antithetical to the idea of becoming a household word.

Oh, I'm fully familiar with the game it's referring to. I just don't understand the connection between a serious search engine and a silly child's game.

Is it some kind of inside joke? I just don't get it. I have nothing against the child's game; it just makes no sense to anyone that they named it after that, and it's not an easy name to pronounce or type. Bottom line: It sounds, feels, and looks bad on them.

I still remember when 'googol' was my 2nd grade answer to 'no, I like it thousands better, no millions better, no billions better, no googol better!'

And somehow that silly abstraction for "a big number number than yours" became a mega-behemoth of a corporation.

Keep in mind, Google was roundly mocked initially as a ridiculous name that sounded like a word a baby/child might say.

Google, Bing, Yahoo!, A9 Search, Excite, AltaVista, Overture, Inktomi, Lycos, HotBot, DogPile, Mamma.com., Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Cuil.

Those are all ridiculous names if you want to scale them by seriousness.

Then you have MSN Search, AOL / NetFind, InfoSeek, GoTo, LookSmart, WebCrawler, alltheweb. Slightly less ridiculous sounding, which ultimately that didn't make any difference.

I agree. I don't like super generic names like "Signal" or "Go" because they're often ambiguous but some people really go too far the other way. An other example that comes to mind is "SpiderOak". I don't know if there's a reference I'm missing here but it's just a weird and obscure name for an online backup tool.

According to the founder’s AMA, they weren’t thinking.

He had acquired the name Duck Duck Go before deciding to create a search engine. So when he started he just used that name for his next project and it stayed.

It’s clearly due for some rebranding. Duck alone works great for that. It’s got some relavance to their current name, it’s short, there will never be a shortage of puns and word play.

What is a "Google"? It's not even a word. It caught on though.

Its from googolplex, the name of a very large integer that is equal to 1 followed by 10100 zeroes

That word is "googol". Google is nothing. It's a play on words we've gotten used to like DuckDuckGo.

I think that it can also be perceived as derivative from goggles[0], and it fits pretty good.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goggles

The most important thing for a brand name like this to be is:

  1. Simple to remember and easy to pronounce.
  2. Unique and stands out from other generic names.
  3. Aesthetically sounds/looks good.

Under this criteria: "Google" works. "Bing" works. "DuckDuckGo" does not work.

I always figured it was simple because of the Duck Duck Goose correlation. It certainly stands out. And I do like it because of the Duck Duck Good implication. I think fitting those 3 criteria is personal taste.

Agree, this name is terrible and I think that it seriously damages whole search engine/company and lowers it's popularity. This name gives impression that it's something made for fun and one shouldn't expect serious results out of it. Moreover I think that it actively prevents popularization - you mentioned that after your recommendation response is blank stare etc. - for me and I suppose that for many others it works differently: I don't event recommend it to anyone because I know/predicted result similar to yours.

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