A company I once worked for used "Crusade" as their internal product code for a product I was working on. As shipping became closer, and it became clear to me that a major client for the product was the Kuwait government, I drew product management's attention to the fact that that product code was unlikely to meet a warm reception in the Middle East. I was criticised for grumbling, and the product shipped with "Crusade" spattered throughout the source-code and the documentation.
This happened shortly before 9/11.
The product wasn't successful; probably because it was crap, rather than because of the naming debacle.
Big orgs have marketers on-board who spend their time looking for product names that aren't offensive to anyone in the world, don't mean anything offensive in any language, and don't step on trademarks. Small companies don't have that luxury.
A company I once worked for used "Crusade" as their internal product code for a product I was working on. As shipping became closer, and it became clear to me that a major client for the product was the Kuwait government, I drew product management's attention to the fact that that product code was unlikely to meet a warm reception in the Middle East. I was criticised for grumbling, and the product shipped with "Crusade" spattered throughout the source-code and the documentation.
This happened shortly before 9/11.
The product wasn't successful; probably because it was crap, rather than because of the naming debacle.
Big orgs have marketers on-board who spend their time looking for product names that aren't offensive to anyone in the world, don't mean anything offensive in any language, and don't step on trademarks. Small companies don't have that luxury.