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Ask HN: is poutsch a good name for a web app?

7 points by melkisch ↗ HN
I guess you need to know what it does:

It is intended to help people and organizations collect and express opinions online

26 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 62.1 ms ] thread
mehdim
Is it a kind of change.org?
melkisch
Change.org is really about petitioning. We focus more on opinion data
Geoff_Sylvain
Is that a kind of Quora thing?
melkisch
Yes, except that we focus only on question types that generate data (binary, multiple choice, rating, slider). We don't provide open text questions
[dead] franzilorenzo
The spelling is difficult but sounds great. I love the platform. Great design
koopajah
Where does the name come from? Because in French it sounds like the word "putsch" meaning "military coup" or "takeover" and in English it does not seem to mean anything except if you look to "to pout" or "a pouch" ?

How would you pronounce it and are you sure that someone hearing you would understand how to write the name of the application and reach the website or email you easily?

melkisch
The meaning behind it comes from the german word "putsch" ... a coup d'etat. But we feel that U.S. people will have a hard time with the "ou" of poutsch as well as with the "sch". Hence my question...
koopajah
Yeah ok so it is the same word as in French. I'm not a native english but I'd say that adding the "O" changes the pronounciation you're looking for if you target an English market. And having T-S-C-H at the end of the word seems a bit "too-much" because the word "pouch" in english should have the exact pronounciation you want so people might write that and be confused.
melkisch
Thks... we'll see what we can do with pouch.com
koopajah
Don't change your name just based on my comment! At least wait for some other opinions! Moreover, using "pouch" you will lose the original meaning your were going for and people might think you sell small bags or something (which is the meaning of the word "pouch").
electrichead
I guess that depends a bit on your users. If you want a broad appeal, it might be difficult for people to remember. This is merely based on my opinion, but I do think that the "tsch" is very uncommon and that would itself put off a lot of people.
batgaijin
franzilorenzo your account is dead
StavrosK
Hum, in Greek, it's reminiscent of the word for "dick", so not to me. Also, I can see English speakers being turned off by it.
jdbevan
IMO it's kind of hard to pronounce (-tsch is not common in English) and remember how to spell.
brackin
From the comments it sounds like a polling app. In which case no, some folks I've seen doing a very simple version of this use URL's like http://poll.cm, http://polls.io and http://gopollgo.com
melkisch
We understand that "poll" as a negative connotation. In addition, we think Poutsch is a little more than social polling so we would like to avoid that word.
brackin
I know a lot of companies use Survey Monkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com

To be honest I didn't understand what you did at first, the name didn't help. You don't want to be vague as you have to find out if you're actually solving a problem.

[dead] rey12rey
To be frank the name never ever matters as long as it means something to you the creator. You could always create a niche outta the weirdest of names. Stick with it.
heavymark
As an English speaker I'd pronounce it Pout ssh. Which doesn't sound very appealing or at least seem to relate to polling at all other than the first two letterS. And the last three letters seem to relate to your username.
jeffehobbs
No. Sounds like "pouch". Which is not good.
shimsham
The word poutsch doesn't evoke any feelings or sense of familiarity nor nostalgia. Its pronounciation is unclear and, depending on the regions where it will be used, it may sound 'too foreign'.

Noting the criteria above, you could consider a more obvious, clear and relevant name such as Declarium. This is just an example of course, and I'm sure you can find other names with a suitable path to help u decide on the suitability criteria.

ArekDymalski
In my case this name brought only negative associations. The first thing that came to my mind was "rotten, smashed fruit". Then II thought about a balloon loosing the air. I guess these aren't the reactions you're looking for.
SarahKay
When I read the headline, my first thought was that it was just a weird spelling for "pouch." Then when I read your description, I saw the word "collect" and thought "Yup, it must be a reference to a pouch, since it's for collecting things."

Having now read the comments, it sounds like that's not what you're going for, but it seemed reasonable when I first read it. A weird spelling, sure, but no more weird than the other new startup names we roll our eyes about.

On the other hand, maybe you don't want people rolling their eyes at all. =)

alid
The name itself doesn't describe to me what the app does, but that's not necessarily an issue if all your other brand attributes make it a clear proposition.

Have you thought about playing around with 'Vox Pop'? Latin for something like 'voice of the people', we used to do vox pops when I worked in advertising - grabbing a camera and harnessing the opinion of people on the street.