I love the Chevy story.  It's classic.  And I agree about denizen to a point.  The challenge is taking an existing word and recreating an image for that word.  Had it been a homonym, I might have been sold.  I'm sure that citizen played into the mix somewhere, and I'll never profess to be a naming expert, but I think they have a spelling and pronunciation challenge before they even get to the image.  One very cool site to play with (not taking the place of a naming consultant) is MakeWords.com.  Ultimately, the world is a big, and I don't know that Hilton needed to take on several hundred years of meaning attributed to a single common noun. 

But you raise some great points.  Westin:  now there's a good made-up name for a hotel.  When you think of the franchises, with the exception of W, they all conjure other images:   Embassy Suites, Towne Place, Express, Courtyard (brilliant choice), Select or the brand equity built into Hyatt or Sheraton.  Heck, they could have used an H, but that's too derivative.  I just think they went against the grain and didn't pick a "Summerfield" or some nice sounding name.

And frankly, those who do know the word and probably crinkling their nose and saying, "They named it what?" 

Oh, I think Nick and others would tell us that calling out the Blogging Army by criticizing them is much worse than ignoring them and listening to their complaints. :D

Hi there, Corey. The lists look pretty similar so that's encouraging. There's no reason why they should or shouldn't... just kind of noteworthy in universal search days. I like the way your blog is broad enough to touch TED and mainstream issues alike. The ABCs have been fun because with months of data (we record the number of pages too), you start to build a fun snapshot of something, just not sure what exactly. In some ways it feels like a fortune cookie or an astrology list in the local paper, but it's an addictive little habit. It's like Soduku, which is only word search for numbers, not actual math, but has millions of fans.

Cheers,
George

See, I knew you would be here and drag JetBlue into the mix. The interesting thing was that JB was a result of not responding. This was an attack. And I remember Neeleman as a media and consumer darling whereas Ryanair has always had an ambivalent public attitude.

I can't get over the boneheaded move of attacking bloggers. They're smart people who view themselves as the vanguard of new media.

Can a company like Ryanair pull this out or do they get buried in a firestorm, Nick?

Ah, but they're over in the old country.   And whenever they end up truly selling to Virgin now because of gestures like this, don't boycott Virgin.

Wow, Steven. I didn't realize they were running TV spots too. Ouch! Thanks for the word.