I think it is bad. You just cannot go to your manager and PR and tell them we are using CockroachDB. If you have a manager who would understand this though, then your manager still cannot go to his manager with that name.
Maybe its a clever tactic to reduce usage at companies that are controlled by non-technical people that are more worried about the name than the technology. Probably has a notable effect on the number of demanding/misinformed issues that they have to deal with ;)
Yeah, sounds like an awkward conversation but I know there's some huge companies using it. I guess they named it that way because cockroaches are believed to survived since the dinosaurs. I guess be the same if you named it BedBugDB, they are hard to get rid for some people too.
But I think some just dismiss it based on the name. I think if I was going to build a startup, it'd be on the top of the list for database choices only thing I really wish it had was Full Text Search and CIText but I guess those will be added some day. I think it's a neat piece of engineering though so far!