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Comment by yen223 | Hacker News Reader

Calling the browser 'Safari' is weird, if you think about it. I remember trying to teach my mom how to use the iPad to access the internet:

"First press the home button"

"Ok"

"Now tap on Safari"

"But I don't want to see animals"

"..."

And that's when I realized why Internet Explorer was so successful.

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Well, it fits with the theme. "Safari" is Swahili for "journey" or "trip" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari#Etymology)

That fits it in with the browsers of the time:

  Netscape Navigator

  Internet Explorer

I would guess the code name 'Alexander' came from 'Alexander the Great', who not only traveled a lot, but also conquered, just like Safari was aiming to conquer the Internet. They must have ignored the 'die young' aspect of that connotation.

Safari also has the right feelings associated with it with almost everybody. Some will think "hah, killing elephants", others will think "paying people to help me watch elephants, so that they no longer need or want to kill them", but nobody (nowadays) will associate negative thoughts (exploiting the natives; killing rare animals) with it. And, apparently, there also is a link with surfing the ocean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfin_Safari. I think that may have led to thinking of the name, but I doubt that is strong enough to choose the name.

I was born in South Africa and have spent half my life in its neighbour, Namibia. Both countries are well known for diverse wildlife and vast unspoiled natural habitats.

"Safari", to me, is a word foreigners use unnecessarily and some locals chuckle at when they hear it. Locals simply say "We're going to Blahblah National Park for Christmas." It's also the name for a brand of dried fruits and nuts, which makes it even weirder to hear it in conversation here.

I honestly didn't grasp the relevance of the name to the Internet until you explained it now, despite programming for over 15 years and living in Africa for over 29 years.

I'm Australian, and that's what we think of the word "Walkabout".

We roll our eyes at the tourists, then just go and do whatever it is we were doing.

I always assumed, no ones mentioned it yet, that Safari was a link to the Mac OS X code names.

You'd go on Safari to observe (not necessarily hunt) wild cats like Tigers, Lions, etc.

Also along with the binoculars for remote desktop, I thought they'd be going for a Safari theme throughout the OS, but it ended up going more space themed.

I guess you could say the OS (both Safari and space) fall into the exploration theme as a whole.

Well, Safari used KHTML, and the big KHTML-based browser at the time was called Konqueror...

You are on the right path, my son.

I'll write another post about why we called it "Alexander." You're not far from the mark about it being related to "Alexander the Great." But not for the reason you think.

Given that Safari/WebKit is based on KHTML, I'd say that Alexander was named after KDE's Konqueror.

Yes, that is the relationship. All of the components were named after (K)conquerors.

Well, I can't see how "killing elephants" is different than "exploiting the natives; killing rare animals". Safari is phonetically a very nice name, however it still bears negative connotations. At least for some people.

Great names often have some negative connotations.

Caterpillar is such an excellent name, that almost everybody remembers it once they have seen it. That can't be said about many other building machinery brands. But you can bet that when that name was proposed, somebody raised objections because "you can't name our powerful machines after an insect"

Virgin Airlines has very negative connotations ("Virgin communicates that we are inexperienced and not safe to fly, and that's a show-stopper in airline industry, Mr. Branson. shouldn't we consider another brand for our airline subsidiary?")

It takes balls to pick a great brand name, because almost all names have minus sides.

Just an FYI, you do know that the Virgin Group has been around a lot longer than the airline company right?

The brand name "Virgin" arose when Branson and a partner were starting their first business, a record shop. They considered themselves virgins in business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Group

It is a very British story so most of us in the UK probably know the success story a lot better.

Yes. I've read a couple of books by Sir Branson. Virgin Airlines was used by Igor Branding agency in their naming guide of something that somebody might object even if Virgin prefix is an obvious choice for any Branson's company

Yes, I totally get your point. A bit of a double edged sword really!

Another example: "iPad".

"Wii".

Oh, how the jokes flowed when the name was announced. Then the sales numbers came out, and people stopped joking.

Some of us still didn't stop. A bad name is a bad name, regardless of how good the product might be.

In part the "bad" name helped to spread the word of the product initially; it was a hook for many stories that would otherwise not have been written IMO. Thousands of media outlets poked fun at it all the while informing the world about a revolutionary new Nintendo system.

Genius.

But it doesn't fit grammatically with Navigator and Explorer, which both either describe the browser or its user directly. The piece of software directly lets the user navigate and explore the web. Safari's name doesn't do this.

What hasn't anyone developed a browser, and just called it "Browser"?

When Android first came out, its browser was called "Browser". I actually appreciated that.

The stock Android browser is still called “Browser”. My Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.1.1 has Browser version 4.1.1.

That's almost as brilliantly perverse as the Mac OS originally being called "System".

Put it on a platter, son, you'll enjoy it more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAO0owc4xeY

It is extremely confusing.

    - It does not work in the browser!
    - Which browser?
    - The browser!
    - I got that, you idiot. WHICH browser?!

One russian company called Yandex actually did: http://browser.yandex.com/

Only after their competitor Mail.Ru named their browser "Internet":

http://internet.mail.ru/ (there are no English version)

Well, the progression should be:

Navigator -> Explorer -> Konqueror

With the order the arrive at a new found / colonized land.

And then you just go there for Safari.

I don't know - when I first heard the name, 'Safari' made sense to me after a moment of thinking about it. Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, and Safari - all named around the theme of discovery.

Or sports utility vehicles.

Wow, that's actually spot on.

1. Lincoln Navigator - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Navigator

2. Ford Explorer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Explorer

3. Tata Safari - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Safari

> "But I don't want to see animals"

If we do not count the typical geek crowd (HN, /. etc.), then I am pretty sure most people go online to do exactly that: go on a safari, see animals (baby animals! cats! cats! dogs! cats!), babies, and Facebook is sort of a safari, allowing you to observe your online friends in their natural habitat. ;)

I've always felt Microsoft has been very good at grabbing very generic, "standard" names: Word, Office, Windows, Internet Explorer, etc. These names become very iconic in and of themselves and they just "feel" like the market leader, whether you are familiar with them or not.

Do it again and see the reaction now.

Safari is not for one time use.

I vaguely associated it with "Surfin' Safari" and the Beach Boys.

Me too. At the time it was released, the metaphor of “surfing the web” was still very strong.

And there's this:

https://www.webkit.org/blog/

I really wish that MS didn't also name their file manager 'Explorer'. "Okay, now open Explorer... no, not Internet Explorer..."

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