[kazinator]

When this business name was chosen, did that process actually involve the firing of a synapse in someone's cerebral cortex?

People are going to be put off by a by what looks like a portmanteau of "Paki" and some word ending in "ble".

Large numbers of people, I suspect.

Gee, let's make up a venture name by adding a common suffix to an ethnic slur!

[qasar]

I'm Pakistani and one of two partners at YC who works closest with Pakible. This thought has literally never crossed my mind in 5 months since we funded them.

[Skrypt]

it hasn't been a problem. thanks for your concern though.

in case you're curious:

The name we selected was "Packable" = packaging + enable/capable/etc.

But the domain was already taken. We searched for alterations of that until we landed on pakible.com being available.

[kazinator]

I'm skeptical; I mean, when you start a venture, you hope that it takes off. Will it still not be a problem if you gain 10, 30, 50 times the attention that you have now?

Good luck, though! Whatever bumps you hit, you will sort out along the way.

One good thing is that the name's phonology doesn't have the issue; just the spelling. Phonetically, it's just "packable".

[kenrikm]

I was not even aware "Paki" was a slur that refers to Pakistani individuals and never would have made the connection and I'm doubtful the average person would either. It's clearly a packaging company and so the mind makes that connection when reading the name.

[pm]

Paki, an ethnic slur? I would've thought it was short for Pakistani.

[kazinator]

Maybe this will help you:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Paki

Starting with the very first sentence under "Usage notes".

In summary, a strict prefix of some place name or nationality is not automatically a harmless contraction. For instance, "Jap" is not a word which has exactly the same nuance as "person of Japanese descent".

[pm]

Fair enough, but it's not a US-centric thing (which is the bulk of YC companies), so I highly doubt that "fired a synapse" for the founders when they came up with the name.

When the Pakistan cricket team tours down here in Australia, they're colloquially referred to as "the Pakis", but that's because we colloquialise EVERYTHING, and has nothing to do with slurring anybody.

[DanBC]

Neal Stephenson writes about this in one of his books -- not sure which. A character wonders why "Brit" or "Ausie" are acceptable, while "Jap" or "Paki" are not.

He doesn't mention the use of the word Paki by neo-nazi far-right racists.

Edit: in the UK it's almost always a slur. I can see how in other places it's just an abbreviation.

[pm]

If you're going to downvote this, at least respond. I was asking a genuine question.