If Square whines about someone else using the name, I will say the same thing. It's a tradeoff, and they've made their choice.

There are two sides of the story. Square (Paper in this case) probably does not benefit greatly from whining (from both PR and legal perspectives), but why would a company take the name to begin with. Either they were blind, or confident that there brand would bypass whatever was existing, or they are hoping to ride off existing brand recognition for a quick boost.

Eh … whenever someone mentions Square I first think of Squarespace. That’s the much more present Square brand in my head (probably because I listen to way too many podcasts and Squarespace seems to advertise on all of them while Square isn’t relevant or present at all in Germany).

Their brand name really manages to confuse me whenever it’s mentioned … but that just comes with the territory of picking something so generic.

So, yes, there is a question what someone is referring to when they talk about Square in the context of an app. That happened to me several times already, here on HN. I read some headline with Square in it, click on it and am confused why it’s not about website hosting.

I have little doubt that it is possible to build an extremely successful brand that no one confuses with anything else around a very generic term (just think of Apple), but if you want that super-generic word to work out for you (and those words can be cool to use, no doubt) you have to live with people confusing you until you pull it off. It’s a trade-off.

squarespace.com had a Superbowl commercial yesterday and my wife asked is that "Square"?... which led to a 15 sec. conversation.

I'm pretty sure squarespace existed before square.

oh you mean the guys that make the Final Fantasy games for iOS.

Nah, that's Squeenix

If I didn't already know about the payments company, I'd think that final fantasy was moving off of DSs and onto mobile, to be honest.