What's in a name? Five vendors reveal their name origins
Splunk, Snyk, N-able, Arctic Wolf and Zyxel - ever wonder how these companies landed on their names?
"What's in a name?" Juliet begs in Shakespeare's tragedy as she states a name is merely a convention with no meaning behind it.
Sixteenth century conclusions aside, settling on a name is an exciting yet critical step in the founding of every business that must not be taken lightly.
To avoid landing on a list of ‘worst company names' (Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to X springs to mind), businesses must get it right.
The name of IBM's services spin-off Kyndryl raised eyebrows in 2021 with some light hearted mocking of the name choice, likening it to something that treats headaches.
To find out the origin story of other channel companies, CRN quizzed five vendors on how they decided on their names.
Splunk
Founded in the early 2000s by Eric Swan, Rob Das and Michael Baum, Splunk actually got its name from caving and not a combination of the words ‘software' and the children's game ‘KerPlunk' as you might have originally thought.
"Inspired by spelunking, the hobby of exploring caves and mines, splunking is the exploration of information caves and the mining of data," explains James Hodge, group VP and chief strategy advisor at Splunk.
"Seeing that ‘everything' makes data, the team sought a way to extract value from that. The early technology centred around a powerful search engine that scanned and stored log files within system infrastructure. Splunk has grown a lot since those early days.
"Today, Splunk helps organisations explore things that aren't easy to get to otherwise, like computer and machine data. Removing these data barriers uncovers tonnes of meaning and actionable steps .
"That's why you'll hear the company talk about Splunkers (its employees and community) or the idea of Splunking around.
"For Splunk, it's not only about capabilities, it's the things you can do with those capabilities."
Acronyms and made up names vs real names, read on to find out more vendor names...
What's in a name? Five vendors reveal their name origins
Splunk, Snyk, N-able, Arctic Wolf and Zyxel - ever wonder how these companies landed on their names?
Snyk
This cybersecurity vendor chose the iconic guard dog breed of a Doberman, affectionately called Patch, as its mascot owing to its nature as a "friendly companion" with "fierce protectiveness."
But the name, pronounced ‘sneak' is actually an acronym, as Samantha Wessels, VP sales international tells CRN.
"Snyk stands for ‘So Now You Know'.
"Being a security company it's about now knowing where your vulnerabilities are. It's quite clever and that's what it stands for. So now you know!"
What's in a name? Five vendors reveal their name origins
Splunk, Snyk, N-able, Arctic Wolf and Zyxel - ever wonder how these companies landed on their names?
N-able
N-able was originally founded in 2000 by Mark Scott, in Ottawa, Canada.
The MSP-focused vendor was then acquired by SolarWinds in 2013 for $120m, and was soon rebranded ‘N-able by SolarWinds'.
N-able went through more rebrands, from ‘SolarWinds N-able' in 2015 to ‘SolarWindsMSP' a year later.
Then in 2021, the great spin-off occurred when N-able IPOed to become N-able…again, trading on the New York Stock Exchange in July.
Celebrating its second anniversary this year, David Weeks, VP of partner experience at the vendor explains why the company went back to version one.
"We recently celebrated our second anniversary as ‘N-able 2.0' in July of this year. We decided to go back to the N-able name as we felt it extends the roots of who we are as a company.
"The common thread is a focus on partnership and helping MSPs succeed, that's what we built our reputation on a couple of decades ago and that's what we continue to build our reputation on."
What's in a name? Five vendors reveal their name origins
Splunk, Snyk, N-able, Arctic Wolf and Zyxel - ever wonder how these companies landed on their names?
Zyxel
Every letter in Zyxel, pronounced like ‘cycle', not ‘pixel', has meaning as a result of laudable design, as Jean-Marc Guignier, EVP of sales and marketing EMEA at Zyxel Networks explains below.
"In the late 1980s, when Dr. Shun-I Chu was founding the company, a lot of new tech companies in Taiwan were choosing names that started with the letter ‘A', the intention being that they would appear first in alphabetical lists.
"But Dr. Chu wasn't up for following the crowd. He believed in doing things differently and decided to flip the script and start with the letters ‘Zyx', from the end of the alphabet.
"He then added ‘el' with the idea suggesting that ‘Zyxel' would excel in all its efforts and endeavours, which is something we continue to strive for every day.
"That's how Zyxel was born. It's a name that we feel is as unique as our approach to everything we do."
What's in a name? Five vendors reveal their name origins
Splunk, Snyk, N-able, Arctic Wolf and Zyxel - ever wonder how these companies landed on their names?
Arctic Wolf
Contrary to Zyxel, Arctic Wolf went for a name on the opposite end of the alphabet.
Despite associating itself after an animal that hunts sheep, Arctic Wolf actually followed the flock with its way of thinking.
As its CEO Nick Schneider explains, the cybersecurity company opted for a ‘real' name, rather than a mashup, and wanted to be at the start of the alphabet.
"Our founder was really intentional about wanting the name to be proper English or wanting it not to be a combination of words instead of something that's made up and wanted to ensure that it invokes kind of a feeling of what it takes to be a strong cybersecurity partner.
"The wolf itself operates in a pack, they have a certain way of operating against their mission and against a specific task, whether that be survival or whether that be hunting.
"They're very intentional about the way in which they engage but they engage as a pack to solve a mission and that's very much the way in which cybersecurity operates as a business.
"Adding the ‘Arctic' quite frankly is just about ensuring that the name starts with an ‘A' so you get yourself at the top of lists that are stacked alphabetically, which believe it or not, when you're a small company ten years ago makes a difference.
"So the wolf was really the primary piece to the puzzle and then ‘Arctic' was about how we would be able to get that message in that brand front and centre as people were researching cybersecurity companies.
"And it's evolved to be a really strong brand and a really strong logo. I think our partners really enjoy it."