Week 9: Global Names in Branding

 This week, the New York Times covered the naming of a new business - Justin and Ben Smith pick a name for their media start-up, March 22, 2022. Justin Smith is a former chief executive for Bloomberg Media and Ben Smith is  former media columnist for the New York Times, and together they've created a new media startup that will cover general interest news in an "experimental" storytelling format as well as provide talent booking services, literary agent services, and representation of journalists. They are setting their sights high and aspire to global relevance. With that in mind, they have named their startup Semafor, a trademarkable derivative of the word semaphore.

Semaphore in English is generally nautical in nature, and refers specifically to a system of sending messages by holding the arms or two flags or poles in certain positions according to an alphabetic code both as a noun and as a verb. The word started its etymological life as two Greek words, sēma 'sign' and the suffix -phoros, 'bearer', which joined the French language as the single word sémaphore, which made it's way into the English language as semaphore. The French and British, notorious colonists, spread the word across their colonies, leading to the word having localized versions in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America and becoming a global word.  

The decision to change the "ph" to "f" and removing the extraneous "e" at the end not only makes the word distinct, but also lends itself better to phonetic pronunciation, which lends itself to less confusion for those who can speak English but perhaps not read it, or those who can read English phonetically. 

Semaphore is also viewed as a somewhat antiquated term, conjuring up images of a young sailor lad in blue and white on a wooden ship with a carved woman at the bow. This kind of antiquated image could play well for Semafor's concept of being an experimental media startup, bringing a sense of long-lasting stability from the Golden Age of Sailing, while also more overtly breathing new life into a term that's been outdated for the general public for over a century. It helps establish both strength and innovation - and that's tricky to convey in a single word, but it seems they've done it here.