[Chevalier]

>We ended up with a name very similar to the one we started with, one that all of us like just fine, and one which is just going to be what people call our new, supremely free, project management app. I think everyone would have gotten used to Hippolist too, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s called Trello now.

>In the end we should have just had Michael do the whole name picking in thirty minutes and been done with it.

I mean... successful names DO imply what the product is. "Google" is similar to the English language term for staring in wonder. "Facebook" is taken from the existing name for books of college students. "MyFitnessPal," clunky as the name and product are, is a pretty informative name. If you rattled off a list of these names to a grandmother, chances are that she could divine the purpose of each website.

I'm a huge fan of Trello, and I think the name works well the same way that "Xerox" worked well -- because most people really don't have another word for kanban systems or photocopies, and the product name suddenly defines the category. But unless you're churning out revolutionary new products rather than refining existing ideas, I think it makes sense for your name to in some way characterize your product.

[philippnagel]

Google was derived from the word Googol, not the word goggling. Pure coincidence.

[0]: http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dk/google_name_origin.html

[tjradcliffe]

Trello is a meaningless name. It evokes nothing. It sounds like a portmanteau of "trellis" and "mellow". Even though I've read about the product, or service, or whatever it is, I have no idea what it does because the name has all the sticking power of wet teflon (another meaningless name that was successfully marketed, demonstrating how little names matter).

[mercer]

It's not entirely meaningless, though. It brings to mind 'friendly' and 'fuzzy', and 'dynamic' in a way that 'Xerox' does not. The way a word sounds definitely carries some level of 'meaning'.

Whether this was intentional, or whether it plays a big role in Trello's success is a different story.