What about Boto, the pink Amazonian dolphin? To browse a river is more difficult than browsing the sea

There is already a tax management software product called Drake. Also there is a Python interface to Amazon web services called Boto.

Many of these names are good, but are already used by existing software products. Perhaps we could try translating the names into different languages? Eg. according to google language tools, Shark in Chinese is Shāyú. I think Shayu would be a cool name. But if you don't like that, there are so many languages in the world that there are plenty of alternatives!

+1 to "Recon"

rekonq is nice for me

A good international name should be (skip to my name suggestions if you have no time :

a) Unique: Don't use a word which has been extensively used for similar purposes in the past. Therefore obvious words like "shark" are bad names. Furtheremore e.g. every ice hockey team on earth loves to be named after sharks. Yea... We have testosterone, too
b) Easy to read and speak: This means especially that it must be written like spelled (in case of latin script). Therefore names derived from languages like English and French are far from ideal, as they have a frozen ortography that reflects a language none speaks today. Even German ortography which aims at the "write how you speak" ideal contains quite some odd exceptions. Latin is a bit better.
c) Should have some kind a meaning for everyone, regardless what the motherlanguage is. Therefore it shouldn't be a syntetic name that just sounds good but has no meaning. Big business loves to invent such pointless company names like "Evonic"... AS well names deried from "exotic" languages require a lot of explanation. For instance "Ubuntu" has a unique name and is easy to read and speak for everyone but well who knew in advance that it means "humanity"? Sure the name has a nice story and meeting 2 of 3 requirements is not bad (as most program names don't even meet one) but lets try something even better.

So a language for finding good name candidates is Esperanto. It is seldom used for program names (unique), is strictly written like spelled (easy) and its vocabulary is derived from a lot of languages and often words are simplified to a common root (a meaning for everyone).

So I have three different Esperanto names for "Rekonq" (one Navigator tradition, one describe-what-you-are, and one Dolphin twin):

1) "Piloto" - It means "pilot" (nautical) and continues with the tradition of "Navigator" -> "Explorer" -> "Konqueror". After we have conquered the whole web we now want to find wthin our conquered land interesting places we want to go to. So we need a pilot that knows the web.

2) "Hiperlegilo" - meaning "Hyper[text] browser/reader". Maybe a bit long but it exactly describes what it is. Perhapes someone finds a better word for the root "-legilo" (= reader/browser).

3) "Tinuso" - This is the tunafish. Tunas are predators with an impressive shape and of similar size as dolphins, especially the northern bluefin tuna. And of course they are _real_ fishes and they are the only fishes that can regulate their temperature and thus have even more in common with dolphins. So I think "Tinuso" would be a good twin for our "Dolphin". And of course the critically endangered northern bluefin tuna really deserves a little more attention than beeing just eaten and eradicated - again much like whales and dolphins.

P.S.: And of course there is already one KDE program that had to move to another name and which now has an Esperanto name: "Blogilo". So maybe KDE could start a new naming tradition after X-here, K-there, G-foo and the final i-everywhere...

@Arnomane

Don't get me wrong, but none of your suggestions are in accordance to your rules - mostly 'c. Should have some kind a meaning for everyone'

The only word that would be recognizable is pilot(o) but it is already used in a lot of places (an 'o' doesn't really make a difference)

@ivan:

Especially my second suggestion "Hiperlegilo" is not my favourite but at least it demonstrates the idea of "describe-what-you-are". I admit "piloto" is similar to "pilot" and violates a bit the uniqueness-rule (despite I never would come to the idea spelling pilot_o_ similar to the english p[e|a]ilot). But what about "Tinuso"? I think it sounds unique and is both easy to read and speak and of course has a meaning although the "i - u" swap maybe makes it harder to recognize as tun[afish]. And if you like you can create a nice story around it.

I don't think Esperanto is the perfect candidate (especially the mandatory _o_ending is a bit restricting) but at least its spelling is better than that of most other languages and I am really bored of english program names and yet another geeky english word play.

Anyways what do you think of my three criterias for good names?

The rules seem ok, but unfortunately they don't provide an algorithm for finding a name

I didn't quite understand the "english p[e|a]ilot" part.

The problem with Tinuso is that even if you know it is tuna (which I didn't) it still has nothing to do with browsing the web. In my mind, tuna is a tasteless fish, and nothing more

I'm aware that we are trying to make a dolphin counterpart but it shouldn't be forced. It not like the /dolphin/ for a file browser was godsent.

On the rekonq blog, a user named Nip Dice suggested Pheme:

Am i at liberty to suggest a name?

Why not consider “Fama” / “Pheme”. The Roman / Greek goddess related to good or bad news. Creator and destroyer of reputations. Just like the modern day internet.

Wings and a trumpet as iconic items…

Pheme “she who initiates and furthers communication”

While talking about greek mythology, Kairos would also be a possibility:

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment).
[...]
In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved."

For me the name kind of symbolizes the opportunity that the change to WebKit might present us with.

Staying in mythology, why not "Atlas"?
Actually Atlantic means in old greek "the sea of atlas" (which gives us a link to Dolphin). Atlas seems was the first astronomer, which seems to work out nice with Konqeror.

Google gives me software products for all these names. Whether or not that constitutes a naming conflict remains to be seen. You really think "dolphin" was not already taken?
- Shark
- Drake
- Orca
- Mako
- Cetus
- Boto
- Fama
- Colibri
- Recon (to a lesser extend)
- Duck (ugliest website ever)
- Nimbus
- Cirrus

Not yet software products seem to be:
- Shayu
- Surfboard
- Pheme
- Thresher

Not considered for being lengthy or ukly:
- Cumulonimbus
- Konquistador
- Kolonizator
- Kolumbus
- Kook
- Kousteau

The question remains if the name might be ok in conjunction with "browser". I would prefer one of the following:

"Nimbus browser"
(reminds me of nimble, gave a hit on google though)

"Drake browser"
(remind of dragon and sir Francis Drake, have "Dapper Drake" and "Mandrake" been dead long enough?)

"Fama browser"
(The one i put forward. Would make my Latin teacher proud)

In the end, it must be up to the developer(s) to choose.

I had a talk with iPhone developer of Shark Full Screen Web Browser.
He is is 100% OK that the name can be used for another browser ... as long as we don't sell it in the AppStore ... Chances are good that we never see it here

I'd like to ask the rekonq guys, given the proposals we have, if they have some prefered ones, and what crieria they'd like for this new name.
(Maybe you've done it in some previous post but I don't know who here belongs to the rekonq team or not ...)

We'd all like to have the *perfect* name and I agree with snirp, rekonq team has the final word.

Hello,

I tought about this name : Husky

The Husky has a good image in people's mind.
This dog is known to be enduring and to lead humans over very long distances efficiently. The analogy with the browser that should allow the user to simply browse through the websites is fairly obvious. Each dog that dials the sled can be compared to the various tools that are integrated and jointly make the power of the browser (Kget, Adblock, KWallet ...)

Obviously, I think a new appropriate icon should be considered.

bralkein wrote:May I humbly suggest "Cetus" as a name.

"Cetus" sounds very much like "Fetus" to me, which is not the most beautiful "thing" in the world, sorry moms. And "Cetus" is not a very neutral/international word to pronounce.

gdebure wrote:I'd like to suggest orca

It is also a sea mammal, so the reference with dolphin is even more obvious, can be spelled with a k if needed to emphasize on KDE.

Plus, it has that slight Italian sonority that gives credit to its creator

I think this to be a very good idea. Even though Orca is a program in Gnome, would it matter if the browser was named Orka? It's also a bit like spelling "conqueror" with K.

It's also short, neutral, international and sounds good.