Naming a multilingual website

May 22, 2004 5:35 PM

How would one go about coming up with a name for a multilingual website?

I'm putting together a youth-oriented penpal-type site that will run in English, French, Japanese, German, and Tagalog (at least to start) and I'm at a loss for how to come up with a domain name. Any suggestions for resources or guidelines to get me started? I snagged ParAvion.ws, but I'm not sure I'm thrilled with it and would like to brainstorm awhile longer.

posted by 4easypayments to writing & language (8 comments total)

Suggestion: Make a new word that isn't specifically any one of those languages, but can be pronounced without much mangling in all of them (no suggestions on how to do that part, though ;-). I'd make the word in standard english letters, because that will be most accessible to everyone.

Bonus points if the word is suggestive a relevant concept in more than one language. (Again, no idea on how to accomplish that.)
posted by whatnotever at 6:42 PM on May 22, 2004

1. Esperanto!
2. Register domain names in each language, and have them resolve to the same host.
posted by stonerose at 9:21 PM on May 22, 2004

PenpalTown.com /org are available

Go register.
posted by planetkyoto at 3:16 AM on May 23, 2004

I think "Par Avion" is a great choice, actually. There are a few terms which are pretty universally encountered, and that's one of them.

If you don't use "Par Avion" and Esperanto doesn't work for you, try pulling from another "planned" language. I think Alfandari's Neo is particularly good.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:47 AM on May 23, 2004

One drawback with Esperanto is that it is commonly recognized as having a bias in derivation - most of the vocabulary and grammatical structure came from European languages. Japanese is barely represented, and I can't imagine any Tagalog connections (but that's less of an issue - your Tagalogers probably also speak English).

On the lines of "Par Avion," "Carte Postale" or "Postcard" are pretty commonly encountered, too, are easy to pronounce, and make the letter-writing a very clear part of the name.

Good luck!
posted by whatzit at 8:06 AM on May 23, 2004

How about...
GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL.org

I'm pretty sure that's as universally recognized as it gets. :P
posted by Witty at 11:32 AM on May 23, 2004

Thanks everybody! Ponies all around.
posted by 4easypayments at 5:36 PM on May 23, 2004

Babylon, of course.
posted by elpapacito at 7:40 PM on May 23, 2004