What Were They Thinking?

From Jeet Heer:

Some examples of business names that don’t make sense:

1. Icarus air Travel. Icarus only had one flight and it ended badly.

2. The Abelard School, a private academy. Abelard was best known for sleeping with a student.

3. Gandhi’s Fine Indian Cuisine. Gandhi was not a known to be a hearty eater or gourmand.

4. Mecca Jeans. Is it good idea to wear jeans at Mecca?

5. Ponce De Leon Federal Bank. Ponce De Leon supposedly went searching for the fountain of youth. Even though the story is not true, still that’s what his name means to most people. Would you trust him with your life savings?

Good points, all.

8 thoughts on “What Were They Thinking?

  1. Abelard was best known for sleeping with a student.
    Really? To me, he's best known as a logician, for his passionate love for Héloïse and for eventually being castrated by the vengeful family. Their story is the stuff of legend and Héloïse herself was quite a character. All in all, that's fairly positive, I'd say.

  2. My favorite is Chicagoland's Resurrection Health Care System; if we screw up the first time around, you get a second chance.

  3. First, as a former Atlantan, I suspect Ponce de Leon Bank is on (or started on) Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta. And if you really want to get a funny look, pronounce it like native Atlantans pronounce it (rhymes with freon).

    My favorite bank name was "Perpetual Federal Savings," which always sounded to me like a bank where you could make depositis, but couldn't make withdrawals.

  4. Gandhi is a very common Indian name, so the reference to Gandhi in the name of an Indian restaurant is likely not to Mohandas.

Comments are closed.