1 yr. ago • 75%

Mastodon is a terrible name

I know mastodon joked about not changing their name in their recent changelog but I wish they really did change it. It's long, doesn't exactly roll of the tongue and it's difficult to pronounce in most languages.

End of rant.

Edit: above all I don't think it's a cool name. Can't imagine asking my friends to follow me on Mastodon. They're just gonna think it's something dumb or weird. At least if it had a cool name they would be curious and ask what it's about.

59 comments

Lemmy isn't great either.

24
- I think it sounds pretty cute!
  
  8
- Every time you mention Lemmy outside of Lemmy, you get questions about Motorhead. If you type Lemmy into Google search, you get pages of results about the rock star.
  
  0
i disagree with just about every point of this, good job!

20
- Thank you!
  
  10
It’s long

Eight letters, and 7~9 segments depending on the language. Compare it with other common brands like Facebook, Coca-Cola and Volkswagen.

it’s difficult to pronounce in most languages.

I'm casting doubt on this claim, based on the following:

the vowels can be approximated fine in a 5-vowels system, i.e. the most common vowel system out there.

it doesn't use any sort of complex onset or coda.

even the coda consonants are non-occlusives.

doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue

This is subjective. Personally I think that plenty brands there are considerably worse in this aspect. With a notable mention: that phonotactic trainwreck called Threads. (Four consonants in a syllable, two of them exotic [for most languages at least]? No. Just no.)
19
- Fair enough. Too many syllables though! And no cool factor. I could do with Masto.
  
  I agree that Threads is even worse.
  
  -2
  
  Yeah you could, and that's why it's pretty solid branding. Just like "Instagram", it can be said pretty easily in most languages and it abbreviates nicely (Insta/Masto), so you can make it short.
  
  It's arguably better to have a shorter one or two sillable word as a name, but that is a close second choice.
  
  Now, the toot thing is dumb, and since it's only vaugely official I insist on calling them "posts" on all apps.
  
  You want to talk about a dumb name, let's talk "Fediverse", which may be the stupidest word conceived by any human since "blogosphere", sounds extremely goofy and is just inaccurate and redundant. I mean, "The Federation" was right there, sounds badass and it actually already means "a collection of federated things". A "fediverse" means nothing, but if it id, it'd be "a collection of federations", not "a collection of federated things".
  
  8
  
  The number of syllables does play a role on word length, but keep in mind that most languages have faster syllables than English, due to lighter phonotactics and lower tendency towards monosyllables. (It's like English tries to cram too much info per syllable, and as a consequence each syllable gets a bit loooonger.) As such something like "Mastodon" might sound verbose in English, but in [for example] Spanish or Japanese it's relatively short.
  
  I also like the reference. It's a critter, big, and generally associated with elephants, that are seen as sociable and smart.
  
  (Since people are talking about your username: it reminds me some alcohol extracted from tomatoes. Ethanol, propanol → tomatol. I do agree with you that usernames aren't good names for social networks, mine for example wouldn't roll at all.)
  
  3
  
  Three syllables is too many? Your username has the same number of syllables. Many actual personal names have the same number of syllables. Three is the magic number.
  
  Mastodon is WAY cooler than your username, which looks like a misspelling of "tomato tool".
  
  Masto sounds like slang for breast removal surgery.
  
  3
Twitter is available. 😁

16
- Yep just rename it to Twitter
  
  2
- The site formerly known as Twitter**
  
  -2
rename it Y

16
Split your lungs with blood and thunderrrr!!!

Wait, wrong Mastodon.

15
- Only card to me is the ACE OF SPADES!
  
  Wait, other correct Lemmy 😉
  
  3
- I just saw them a couple weeks ago, killer live show.
  
  3
I rather like it.

13
- Yep that's what this community is for
  
  6
Tech nerds kinda like to name things stupidly. I find myself doing that too. Because overall, I'm not looking to market/brand it and make millions. Many of my projects were proof of concepts or passion ideas that if the open-source world thinks there's value, other nerds will let it grow.

I came to this conclusion as I thought about WINE for Linux. It's a silly name.

But when Valve built Proton, they were intentional in the name sounding "marketable".

11
- We learned this with 'blogosphere' years ago, and now 'fediverse'.
  
  3
Will you change your mind if I tell you that the "masto" in mastodon means "breasts"? ;P

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mastodon

9
- Makes it even worse 😂
  
  2
Agreed. We prefer Mumakil, my precious.

8
It's a way better name than X, or Xwitter, or whatever the Fffff that site calls itself these days.

8
Permanently Deleted

8
- X pisses me off because every time I see an embedded tweet on a news article, I instinctively click the X in the top right corner to try to close it, and instead it opens up some shithole website instead.
  
  9
Mastadons are amazing and hence Mastadon is an amazing name.

6
what else would you call a service where you post toots?

5
- Tooter
  
  6
- I think they officially changed the name to posts, rather than toots. But I always did feel like that held back the platform from being taken seriously. Like, can you imagine a news reporter saying, “Responding to the rise in reported domestic terrorism, President Biden tooted to the nation…”
  
  3
  
  I mean, how much dumber is that than "tweeted"? We just get numb to it eventually.
  
  7
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  1
- Horn?
  
  No. Nope never mind
  
  2
- Synonym of a fart is also a really terrible name.
  
  2
Cutting it short to 'Masto' would be the best idea tbh. Nice and short without making a huge change.

5
- Apparently that means tits
  
  11
  
  That's makes it even better. Everyone loves tits
  
  8
  
  Does that make Mastodon the godfather of tits?
  
  1
- I vastly prefer Don. Or, if you must, Tits. Masto is tits and chewing
  
  5
- Tooties 👀
  
  3
- Please, just do not. Do not shorten any name or word. It sounds terribly, as if some wannabee-cool marketeer without a basic dignity of language-user invented it.
  
  3
I couldn't stop spelling it Mastadon .... I even spelled it wrong in my id I gave to people. 😀

4
The first time I heard of Mastodon I thought it was a drug similar to Methadone

3
I think it's a cool name. And I dunno if it's still a thing but I remember back in the day posts were called toots or something, which I approve of. :P

3
I like it because it reminds me of the dinozords from MMPR. To see the whole set coming together as one federation would be hilarious/awesome.

3
Doesn't matter, other services implementing the ActivityPub standard can have names easier to pronounce by non-English speakers, like Misskey, and the two can interact.

2
- Yes, lemmy is a much better name, for example! 🤣
  
  1
  
  What about kbin?
  
  1
You defo need to listen to the entire "Emperor of Sand" album... Defo...

1
I completely disagree. Why doesn't it roll off the tongue? It does for me, and it's plain simple to pronounce too.

1
Yeah I thoroughly disagree with this one. They are an amazing band, and the name really evokes a sense of what they are - massively loud beasts of heavy metal. Fuckin rock on

1
Permanently Deleted

-1
- What the fuck are you talking about? Twitter was a great name. It was a word long before it was an app, and the definition was “a short burst of inconsequential information” which was exactly what Twitter was. It was also defined as the “chirps from birds”.
  
  Discord is perfect for a chat app. The word is old and means “lack of agreement among persons”. It’s exactly what discord is. A chat app to talk shit to your friends.
  
  Firefox was a slow name change. It was originally phoenix because they rose from the ashes of Netscape. But another company was already named phoenix and so Mozilla had to change the mane. Then it was firebird to play on the imagery of the phoenix and go along with the thunderbird mail client they had. Again another company already had a similar product called firebird so they changed the name to Firefox, a nickname for the red panda, which became the original mascot of the brand.
  
  In contrast, the mastodon is a relatively unknown extinct animal related to the more well known woolly mammoth. And toots are farts.
  
  10
- YouTube makes sense to me. People in some areas, maybe more back in the day, would call TVs "the tube". YouTube is a tube...for you. You're su subscriptions etc.
  
  6
- what the shit does “Youtube” even mean
  
  Tell me you're a youngster without telling me you're a youngster.
  
  5

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