I never type it because DDG is my default.

I think Google was a harder name to remember for non-nerds who weren't familiar with the rather obscure word.

There is a short alias: As someone else mentioned, duck.com redirects to duckduckgo.com

It’s a riff on the children’s game “duck duck goose”.

The biggest problem is that it's the American (UK as well?) name for a children's game - not the sort of thing most English speakers would ever learn, unless they are really connected to US/UK culture.

The game is probably more or less universal, but the name is unrecognizable.

I feel like it’s such an oddball name that it sticks in my head.

Oddly, in some regions of the US, the same game is called "duck, duck, grey duck".

ddg.gg or duck.com are both easy to type. And I suppose duck.com is reasonably easy to remember.

duck.com