Why? Is it really a “trend”?
Chevrolet, Toyota, Lexus, Microsoft, Kodak, Leica, Nikon, Canon, Nokia, Rolex. Some of these are not entirely made up, but they sound like it if you are not familiar with small Japanese towns.
"Rolex" has certainly played out to be a great made-up name.
"Weebly"... eh, I'm not putting my money on that one.
http://gawker.com/5062667/the-15-dumbest-web-20-startup-name...
> But Risaburō Toyoda, who had married into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" (トヨタ) because it took eight brush strokes (a lucky number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off the diacritic at the end) and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced consonants are considered to have a "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to voiceless consonants, which are "clear").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota
Obviously, though, I don't speak Japanese. Would both the family name and the company name be Latinized as Toyoda?
But back to the naming thing, I think it is not the worst idea to name things after japanese terms, because often they can be pronounced quite easily and are often rather memorable. I have often forgotten company names because they sounded so stupid and hard to remember.
Actually, Toyota[1] (豊田) is indeed a Japanese town, not even particularly small and is the home of Toyota Motor Corporation.
The company, in turn, is named after the Toyoda family that founded it. The spelling was changed for aesthetics and connotation.
So yeah, made-up word.
"The area was a major producer of silk and prospered from the Meiji period through the Taishō periods. As the demand for raw silk declined in Japan and abroad, Koromo entered a period of gradual decline after 1930.[2] The decline encouraged Kiichiro Toyoda, cousin of Eiji Toyoda, to look for alternatives to the family's automatic loom manufacturing business. The search led to the founding of what became the Toyota Motor Corporation.
On March 1, 1951, Koromo gained city status, and absorbed the village of Takahashi from Nishikamo District on September 30, 1956. Due to the fame and economic importance of its major employer, the city of Koromo (挙母市?) changed its name to Toyota on January 1, 1959."
Simply put, if you create a fanciful term you will be able to operate with greater reassurance that you will not face trouble in the future in relation to your choice of name.
Part of the problem here is the imbalance between the parties' respective positions. The article in fact admits that it is not users being confused that Instagram's app is related to their existing app, but the other way round. You might say that due to Instagram's size, they have the ability to instantly develop goodwill around a new app and its name (I am playing devil's advocate here to an extent).
If I was Instagram I would probably offer a small sum to Bolt.co to change their name on the basis that I could offer a sum now or know I have a deep reserve of budget for legal fees to argue that Bolt.co has not developed sufficient goodwill/reputation to be entitled to prevent Instagram's usage of 'Bolt'.
What? That is not at all how trademark works.
If Instagram wanted, it might have a shot at a protracted lawsuit, attempting to make it not worth Bolt's time to defend the trademark [0].
If that were to happen, though, I would hope that the suit would be dismissed with prejudice because in my non-legal opinion, any reasonable person would agree that Instagram is directly infringing Bolt's trademark in an area of business that is too similar for the average consumer to be able to differentiate.
[0] either by bankrupting them if they decide to defend it, or if Bolt can successfully mount a defense, it would require a large time investment by key employees like all the C-level executives, meanwhile Instagram (having more resources by far) is not impeded in its business nearly as much.
Like Apple?
I have a feeling the guys at King disagree with you.
"Bolt" is a short, common word. "Instagram" is not (it's also more descriptive.)
Unfortunately, the days of naming products desirable things like "bolt," and being able to defend them, legally or not, are over.
The strange-made-up-word naming trend is annoying, but at least you're guaranteed a name no one else wants.