What do we stand for? How can we inspire others to join us? We don’t cover our marketing plan here, but we offer a few comments on branding.
The name chosen for this service is SIGALA. It is pronounced with the first syllable stressed, as in “Figaro”. Accordingly, the domain siga.la has been registered.
It could be an acronym (there is none yet).
Why Sigala? Because:
- It is short and memorable
- It spells out the name of the lay person after whom the inspirational sutta was named
- .la domains are multi-cultural: officially for Laos (S.E. Asia), unofficially synonymous with Latin America or Los Angeles. (The name is itself of Indian origin).
There are also potential unintended cross-cultural issues: a given word may read fine in one language, but sound ridiculous in another! So we have considered the question of what the letters forming ‘Sigala’ connote in various languages. Consider that if the name is current, then it would be like calling a network ‘Robert’ in the UK.
Viewing Google images, it seems that the faces are predominantly of European origin and apply to surnames, so the name seems to have faded from India. The Wikipedia disambiguation page (English language) confirms this and indicates a few meanings, mainly with European connections.1 It is an established Spanish family name.2
These are just a few elements concerning branding (and marketing). Now let’s return to the consideration of how we’re going to design and build the product
Notes
1 Wikipedia disambiguation page for Sigala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigala_(disambiguation)
2 Sigala Family Crest and Name History, HouseOfNames.com http://www.houseofnames.com/sigala-family-crest