“Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.”

W. H. Auden, Anglo-American Poet

“I wanna get a job as someone who names kitchen appliances. Toaster, refrigerator, blender … all you do is say what the shit does, and add ‘-er’. I wanna work for the Kitchen Appliance Naming Institute. ‘Hey, what does that do?’ ‘It keeps shit fresh.’ ‘Well, that’s a fresher … I’m going on break’.”

Mitch Hedberg, American Comedian

Since it began in 2004, Rehab has transformed Vegas’ once-sleepy daytime scene into a “Girls Gone Wild” tableau of debauchery. Today, almost every major casino resort has nightclub operators managing its 21-and-over pools. They hire DJs to spin music and demand hefty cover charges. Rates vary by the weekend; on the cheapest days women pay $20, men $30.

Several resorts have separate “Euro-style,” or top-optional, pools, with half-naked women cavorting in the water. This summer, both the Mirage and Venetian — heavyweights in the nightclub arena — have unveiled re-imagined pools.

“It’s done a remarkable thing to the nightlife landscape,” [the Hard Rock Hotel’s Jack] LaFleur said. “Day life? It’s hard to even categorize ! It’s finding those ways to generate revenue. For a town that’s been known exclusively for nightlife, this was extremely daring and off the charts.”

The gamble is paying off.

What will they think of next? Whatever your reaction, you’ve got to admit Las Vegas is a one-of-a-kind laboratory for destination branding. See you at the pool.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said of him: “I know no greater man on earth.” August Strindberg eulogized him as “a poet who happened to become a naturalist.” And Swiss physiologist Albrecht von Haller called him “the second Adam” because, like the first man, he named every living thing.

Here are some fun facts about Carl:

At the time he lived, most Swedes had no family name. When he entered the University of Lund, he invented the surname Linnaeus after the linn ‘linden tree’ that served as his family crest.

He included a variety of mythological creatures (including the troglodyte, satyr, hydra, and phoenix) in his system of classification.

He was the first person to figure out how to grow bananas in Europe.

He made a habit of naming ugly plants after his critics. Hmmm.

“The right name is an advertisement in itself.”

Claude C. Hopkins, British Advertising Pioneer

“A name is a mirror to capture the soul of a thing […]”

Susan Brind Morrow, American Egyptologist

• Crown (Princess) and Crown (Norwegian)
• Dawn (Princess) and Dawn (Norwegian)
• Dream (Norwegian) and Dream (Carnival)
• Freedom of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) and Freedom (Carnival)
• Jewel of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) and Jewel (Norwegian)
• Legend (Carnival) and Legend of the Seas (Royal Caribbean)
• Magic (Disney) and Magic (Carnival)
• Pride (Carnival) and Pride (Norwegian)
• Sinfonia (MSC Cruises) and Symphony (Crystal Cruises)
• Splendour of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) and Splendor (Carnival)
• Star (Princess) and Star (Norwegian)

What’s going on here?  Three things, I think.  First, there’s the weight of nautical tradition. Second, this appears to be a clear-cut case of naming by focus group, an approach which inevitably yields a name that “sounds like a cruise ship” — like every other cruise ship, that is. Third, I suspect the cruise ship industry, like the theme park industry, suffers from the understandable but dangerous desire to be all things to all people.

It’s particularly surprising that Caribbean has fallen prey to these temptations, since they position themselves as the “fun ship” line.  Kudos to Holland America for hewing to an even older tradition, naming its ships after the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Oosterdam.

• L.A.M.B. (named after her best-selling CD, Love. Angel. Music. Baby.)
• Sweetface
• Princy (named after her father’s nickname for her)
• House of Dereon (named after her late grandmother, Agnez Dereon)
• Twenty8Twelve (named after her birth date, 12/28)

The answers are:

• L.A.M.B. — Gwen Stefani
• Sweetface — Jennifer Lopez
• Princy — Jessica Simpson
• House of Dereon — Beyoncé
• Twenty8Twelve — Sienna Miller

It may not be much of a jump from celebrity to fashion icon, but the usual caveats of brand extension apply:

You’ll want to give your new fashion brand its own identity, breathing life into it rather than naming it after yourself. Your fans normally want to live your lifestyle, not be you, and this brand strategy enables your line to flourish independently, more or less unaffected by the ups and downs of your entertainment career.

That said, your designs should reflect your own sense of style. In other words, you should actually want to wear your own brand — not all the time, but often enough that we know it’s “you.”  Otherwise, you risk being a fashion fad, not a brand.

My prediction for the next big celeb-turned-fashion-brand? Fergie.

Crayola is one of the world’s great invented brand names, in the same league as Kodak, Oreo, and Google. Edwin Binney’s wife, Alice, coined the term from the French word craie ‘chalk’ (the source of our word crayon) plus the affix -ola (a clipped form of the word oleaginous ‘oil-like’ — think Mazola).