It is possible that in the entire history of capitalism in America, the silliest name that has ever been devised for a business is "Lady Footlocker." I understand the reasoning behind the name: "Footlocker" was a successful athletic goods store for men and the geniuses in charge wanted to hive off a parallel enterprise for women. How to do so? Well, right here, in our state, as all basketball enthusiasts know, we have the Colorado Buffs and the Lady Buffs; why not, by analogy, Lady Footlocker -- except for the intractable fact that footlockers don't exhibit gender. A female footlocker? Goodness gracious. Not that the name "Lady Buffs" is at all is satisfactory -- although inasmuch as a female buffalo is properly a cow -- well, things could be worse. Which inevitably calls up the question of what to call the distaff version of Oregon's famous Ducks. Lady Ducks? The obstacle here is that "duck" is already female ("drake" the male "duck"), so Lady Ducks would be excessively hyperfeminine. The finest solution to this onomastic puzzle would be to change the men's team to Drakes -- and then the female version would be immediately obvious. But what about the related question: what to do for a mascot for Drake University of Des Moines, Iowa. My choice would be Drake Monks, but I would accept Drake Drakes. No such luck; in defiance of all mascot logic, they're the Drake Bulldogs -- and I'm going to guess that the women's team is called the Lady Bulldogs, but I don't know for sure. It's a horrid moniker, but still orders of magnitude superior to Lady Footlocker.
But is Lady Footlocker the worst corporate name, as I've asserted? I can offer two other nominees. The first is Unisys (formerly Sperry-Rand); "siss" is a syllable that should never be found in any corporation's name (except in conjunction with -tem) especially if it expects to be taken seriously. My other nominee: a cleaning product that I use, which is called "Mr. Leather." Entirely too S & M for my taste.
The question of worst corporate name is the kind of topic for which the internet is designed. If you google "worse corporate names," you find several lists. Here follow some of my favorites: Casket Basement; Chainsaw Cottage; Hung Fat Lingerie; Stiff Nipples Air Conditioning (you think that I'm making this up; check here; Blood's Seafood and Caterer; B. S. Liquidators; Dodo Mortuary; Cramps Liquors; Beaver Cleaners; Lynch Tree; PMS Firearms; Master Bait and Tackle; Knobs and Knockers. There are dozens more, but none, I think, quite so quintessentially absurd as Lady Footlocker.
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