How Quirky Startup Names Became an Internet Aesthetic

There are 102 startups whose names end in "ify," many of them probably in imitation of Spotify, says the Wall Street Journal, quoting branding consultant Christopher Johnson. Newcomer businesses include notifications system Xtify, as well as Stackify, an information-technology service provider. Quirky names for startups surfaced about 20 years ago in Silicon Valley, with the birth of search engines such as Yahoo, �which originally stood for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The mania for odd names was fueled by a lack of available short, punchy URLs, but it soon developed into an internet aesthetic.