There was a period where foreign-looking letters were sprinkled over everything to make them “exotic” and “cool”. Thankfully, it has mostly passed.
It’s surprisingly hard when you have a global marketplace to find words which are memorable, easily spelled, do not contain phonemes (letter pronunuciation) that are impossible to any of your major markets (think avoidance of r and l sounds in Cantonese China where they are literally interchangeable), are not the same name as any other product produced anywhere by anyone and do not mean anything naughty, dirty or embarassing in any language (think “Flirt” lemonade, “Plop” sauce, “Lil’ Tugger” cleaning materials, “Decap” cleaning materials, “Nickers” Snicker knock-offs) and you don’t want it to have connotations that will connect it to another product (Durex is a brand of sticky tape in Australia and condoms in Europe and I think USA).
You don’t want it to sound “adult” or boring or nerdy or like a food…there really aren’t a lot of words left over. I guess one reason why some companies stick with “i380s” and such unimaginitive product number names.
But I would certainly offer Phonak’s “Inspiro” FM transmitter as a name too embarassing to utter, and the UK health service’s “Reflex” - sounds like it’s going to shock you or something. Succeed by the “Impact” which is a bit less embarassing but still sounds a bit like a slap in the head. Phonak’s health service range is called “Nathos” which is a contraction of “National Hospitals”, which makes sense and sounds like a real name.
