MozillaZine

Help Sherlock Come Up With a New Name

Wednesday April 11th, 2001

David Boswell writes:
"The Sherlock project needs a new name. To avoid any possible trademark issues with other uses of the Sherlock name, the search engine project on mozdev is looking for help on picking on new project name. Come over and vote in our survey to help pick which name you think is best."

Update! David writes:
"We've taken feedback from the first poll and have used those suggestions to create a new one. Come vote one more time to help Sherlock pick a new name for their project."

#1 How about Mycroft?

by bigears

Friday April 13th, 2001 12:05 AM

Mycroft was Sherlock's smarter older brother.

#6 Re: How about Mycroft?

by elbmc1969

Friday April 13th, 2001 9:10 AM

Hmm... if the software is "Mycroft," shouldn't the group that writes it be called "Mycroftsoft"?

#45 Mycroft also a Heinlein character

by sab39

Wednesday April 18th, 2001 1:23 PM

In Robert A Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", Mycroft (known as Mike) is the name of the computer that mysteriously becomes self-aware. Named for Holmes' brother. Can read thousands of books in a morning and is very good at analyzing and extracting information. Mycroft sounds appropriate to me.

If not Mycroft, perhaps Adam Selene... (you have to have read the book to get that though)

Stuart.

#9 Re: How about Mycroft?

by frankhecker

Friday April 13th, 2001 9:58 AM

I suggested "Mycroft" too; it's my favorite choice. And it has a good slogen too: Mycroft: Smarter than Sherlock!"

#33 Re: How about Mycroft?

by pirat

Monday April 16th, 2001 12:41 PM

Sounds good ^_^

#39 Re: How about Mycroft?

by drdjr

Monday April 16th, 2001 9:19 PM

Sounds like MyCruft - Don't we already MyCruftSoft Windows??

#2 How about Homer?

by TonyG

Friday April 13th, 2001 4:42 AM

Nice mix of allusions. Holmes --> Homes --> Homer

Or

Homer's Ilyiad

or

Homer Simpson :-)

And obviously we have homepage, homing in, homecoming etc etc

#40 Re: How about Homer?

by ihxo

Tuesday April 17th, 2001 6:49 AM

call it Homer, or Bartman :)

#3 Kato

by bandido

Friday April 13th, 2001 5:45 AM

:)

#4 What about SideSearch ??

by bugs4hj

Friday April 13th, 2001 6:05 AM

It's the sidebar and all about search right?

#5 Saint Anthony

by Dayspring

Friday April 13th, 2001 8:03 AM

In my country, I suppose in others that may happen too, Saint Anthony is a saint often prayd to when you loose something and you wish to find it. Although somewhat religious, it seems appropriate :)

#7 SharLook

by KaiRo

Friday April 13th, 2001 9:10 AM

As a certain community of people already knows Sherlock, it's probably nice to not change the name too much, I think. And as the Search function is used to _look_ for something, I propose

SharLook

as a new name for this project. It's not too far away from the 'old' name, and shows the characteristics of the product a bit more - what do you think?

#24 Re: SharLook

by SubtleRebel

Saturday April 14th, 2001 2:33 PM

What does Shar mean?

Although not by any means my first choice, how about SureLook instead of Sharlook?

#8 SharLook

by KaiRo

Friday April 13th, 2001 9:12 AM

As a certain community of people already knows Sherlock, it's probably nice to not change the name too much, I think. And as the Search function is used to _look_ for something, I propose

SharLook

as a new name for this project. It's not too far away from the 'old' name, and shows the characteristics of the product a bit more - what do you think?

BTW: This is a project to SHARe components you use for LOOKing for information, right?

#10 what, no "searchzilla?"

by ratman

Friday April 13th, 2001 10:39 AM

B)

#11 An abundance of plugins

by locka

Friday April 13th, 2001 12:33 PM

You can already get Sherlock plugins that work in Mozilla from a number of places. See

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Operating_Systems/Macintosh_OS/Sherlock/

You may have to install the Win32 Stuffit expander to deal with the stupid Mac compression formats however.

#12 I voted for Cobra but...

by Nemo_NX

Friday April 13th, 2001 1:13 PM

there should of been an option for the name "Teletran". :P

#13 Poirot

by gwalla

Friday April 13th, 2001 1:27 PM

Nuff said. Agatha Christie rules.

Other possibilities: "MozMarple" (from "Miss Marple"), "Campion", and "Cadfael".

#44 Re: Poirot

by rwygand

Wednesday April 18th, 2001 12:44 PM

MozMarple is hysterical and gets my vote!

#14 Throwing some suggestions out there...

by Waldo

Friday April 13th, 2001 4:25 PM

Here are some suggestions ff the top of my head. I think it would be cool to have a female name. (Aphrodite is a start, but...)

Agatha - Another name synonymous with mysteries/clues/searching

Dr. Watson - Sherlock's assistant/friend

Holmes - Sherlock's Last Name

Doyle - Author of Sherlock stories

Marple - Agatha Christy Detective

Jane - Miss Marple's first name

Poirot - Another AC character

Remington - Steele, an old fav

Holt - Laura, RS's partner

SamSpade - Bogart detective

Moriarty - Sherlock Holmes' nemesis

Maddie - Hayes (Cybill Sheppherd on Moonlighting)

Fenton - The Hardy Boys' dad

Nancy - Drew, redheaded sleuth

Sally - Encyclopedia Brown's friend

#19 Re: Throwing some suggestions out there...

by Salsaman

Saturday April 14th, 2001 4:54 AM

I vote for 'Fenton' since she was also a character in a Douglas Adams book (I forget which one) and hence irresistibly cool...

#21 Re: Throwing some suggestions out there...

by prawda

Saturday April 14th, 2001 11:19 AM

i see trouble ahead for "Dr. Watson".. people in redmond probably wouldn't like us using their mascot.. ;-)

#36 Re: Throwing some suggestions out there...

by superyooser

Monday April 16th, 2001 5:29 PM

Sam Spade is already taken. It's a "general-purpose Internet utility package, with some extra features to help in tracing the source of spam and other forms of Internet harassment." (from the help file)

#15 Sleuth

by jesusX

Friday April 13th, 2001 8:05 PM

Rather than names that most clods won\\\'t understand, go with Sleuth. =-]

#20 Re: Sleuth

by stfh

Saturday April 14th, 2001 10:39 AM

I like Sleuth. Good idea. It's simple, catchy, universally understood... perfect.

#16 Sleuth

by jesusX

Friday April 13th, 2001 8:35 PM

Rather than names that most clods won\\\'t understand, go with Sleuth. =-]

#17 Latin!

by wolfseyn

Friday April 13th, 2001 9:58 PM

I looked up a couple of words in Latin. easy look facilis acies Let's just call it "My Search" hahah

#30 Re: Latin!

by tny

Monday April 16th, 2001 7:17 AM

That's not idiomatic Latin. "Easy Search" wouldn't work well with Latin; closest would be "quaesitio facilis" - an easy search or an easy inquiry. Scrutator, Quaesitor, Indagator (i.e., Tracker), Speculator, and Explorator would be the most idiomatic Latin names; and Explorator is already taken (and Speculator has the wrong connotations in English, and scrutator and indagator just sound wrong).

Nice idea, though. Me, I'm rather partial to Mycroft.

#18 how about "Private Dick"

by Aquasky

Saturday April 14th, 2001 3:23 AM

I think this complement libpr0n very well.

#22 Similar to

by baffoni

Saturday April 14th, 2001 2:31 PM

ShurLook or SureLook

A web-based version would of course be

Shur/SureLook Home

A personalized webbased version would be

Shur/SureLook Homes

#23 why the mystery?

by SubtleRebel

Saturday April 14th, 2001 2:31 PM

Sherlock was chosen because of the name's connection with finding things. Some of these other mystery names are more related to murder; not exactly what is wanted here. I'd go more with something related to the actual function rather than something related to Sherlock Holmes.

If you want to keep the mystery relationship though, how about BLOODHOUND ? Or just "HOUND DOG" ? Or "ROVER" ?

Some other random ideas :

The Seeker SearchNet iSearch iFind

#25 Re: why the mystery?

by SubtleRebel

Saturday April 14th, 2001 2:35 PM

Hmmm, some of my carriage returns were apparently discarded from my last post.

#34 Re: why the mystery?

by gwalla

Monday April 16th, 2001 2:00 PM

Wasn't Rover the huge balloon thing from The Prisoner?

#26 No Mystery

by jonct

Sunday April 15th, 2001 3:24 AM

I agree with SubtleRebel: let\'s not try so hard to find variations on the \"Sherlock\" motif.

We\'re looking for something fresh, that doesn\'t just refer back to somebody\'s trademark.

Something that clearly describes the function of the component.

Something generic, to avoid trademarks and stay out of trouble.

I know... let\'s call it The Finder!

#35 Re: No Mystery

by gwalla

Monday April 16th, 2001 2:00 PM

Er...Apple already calls the Mac desktop "The Finder"

#27 Trademark this :

by new500

Sunday April 15th, 2001 5:09 AM

Purely (in my mind) to get one up on the same people who would claim your infringement, how about :

iSleuthâ„¢

??

Is that memorable enough?

Apologies to the poster above (who, judging by their name is preoccupied this weekend and no doubt selfless enough not to have made the egoistic prepend \'I\'). But as I work with names and marks for a living, I\'m getting good at adding the obvious;-)

Also, whilst the feature\\\\\\\'s in beta, call the thing \\\\\\\"Streuth\\\\\\\".

Also off the top of my head, if the word \\\\\\\"Sherlock\\\\\\\" would normally be associated by the (non computing) public with a search or discovery process, a certain company might have a problem protecting the name as a Tmark due to rules on descriptive names? That at least is the principal behind names with prefixes or odd characters such as Compaq - move away from a dictionary word to claim it as your own.

Whatever, hope y\\\\\\\'all find a name which works.

P.S. w\\\\h\\\\\\a\\\\\\\\\\t\\\\\\\'s\\\\ up\\\\\\ w\\\\it\\\\\\h \\y\\ou\\r\\ \\t\\ex\\t\\ \\p\\ar\\s\\i\\n\\g?

#28 Trademark this :

by new500

Sunday April 15th, 2001 5:20 AM

Purely (in my mind) to get one up on the same people who would claim your infringement, how about :

iSleuthâ„¢

??

Is that memorable enough?

Apologies to the poster above (who, judging by their name is preoccupied this weekend and no doubt selfless enough not to have made the egoistic prepend \'I\'). But as I work with names and marks for a living, I\'m getting good at adding the obvious;-)

Also, whilst the feature\\\\\\\'s in beta, call the thing \\\\\\\"Streuth\\\\\\\".

Also off the top of my head, if the word \\\\\\\"Sherlock\\\\\\\" would normally be associated by the (non computing) public with a search or discovery process, a certain company might have a problem protecting the name as a Tmark due to rules on descriptive names? That at least is the principal behind names with prefixes or odd characters such as Compaq - move away from a dictionary word to claim it as your own.

Whatever, hope y\\\\\\\'all find a name which works.

P.S. w\\\\h\\\\\\a\\\\\\\\\\t\\\\\\\'s\\\\ up\\\\\\ w\\\\it\\\\\\h \\y\\ou\\r\\ \\t\\ex\\t\\ \\p\\ar\\s\\i\\n\\g?

#29 Re: "Sleuth" or "iSleuth"

by eiseli

Sunday April 15th, 2001 12:19 PM

Well, to tell you the truth, I had to look in my Oxford English dictionary to find out what this word means. Anyone outside of the Anglo-Saxon world would rather prefer the word "detective" instead of "sleuth" (pronounced [slu:th] for those like me who didn't know)...

#31 Back to the basics

by dwester

Monday April 16th, 2001 8:08 AM

How about going for something more basic? Like: Dude! Uhh?

Is there a particular reason why it has to be a word? Why not just a "?" ?

That way people can interpret however they want in their different languges.

#32 MY VOTE

by daddydago

Monday April 16th, 2001 11:18 AM

No Shit Sherlock

#37 How about ...

by drdjr

Monday April 16th, 2001 9:14 PM

ShowZilla ??

#38 How about ...

by drdjr

Monday April 16th, 2001 9:16 PM

ShowZilla ??

#41 dude, where's my sidebar? (n/t)

by ratman

Tuesday April 17th, 2001 10:59 AM

n/a

#42 Astrocyte

by morg

Wednesday April 18th, 2001 11:34 AM

Content on the world wide web is deeply interconnected with other content, but the most useful information has not always been among the most interconnected. Search engines are our best, albeit a primitive, attempt to guide readers to online information and writers to portals for their output. The "Sherlock" innovation in Mozilla is not just a minor improvement. Instead it represents a notable advance toward integrating the web browser and the search engine. Like the web, the human brain is highly interconnected. The better the connections, the more powerful our intelligence. For this reason, and in light of recent scientific advances, if it must be renamed, I would advance the name "Astrocyte" as a suitable replacement for "Sherlock."

"Astrocytes are the most numerous glia (the gray matter) in the brain and have received much of the recent attention. They bloom like delicately branching sea anemones, extending tendrils in all directions toward synapses, the knobby communication connections between neurons. Without astrocytes, researchers find, neurons couldn't nourish themselves, grow, or transmit signals effectively." Science News, Vol 159, No 14, April 7, 2001, p. 222 (article not online).

#43 Astrocyte

by morg

Wednesday April 18th, 2001 11:37 AM

Content on the world wide web is deeply interconnected with other content, but the most useful information has not always been among the most interconnected. Search engines are our best, albeit a primitive, attempt to guide readers to online information and writers to portals for their output. The "Sherlock" innovation in Mozilla is not just a minor improvement. Instead it represents a notable advance toward integrating the web browser and the search engine. Like the web, the human brain is highly interconnected. The better the connections, the more powerful our intelligence. For this reason, and in light of recent scientific advances, if it must be renamed, I would advance the name "Astrocyte" as a suitable replacement for "Sherlock."

"Astrocytes are the most numerous glia (the gray matter) in the brain and have received much of the recent attention. They bloom like delicately branching sea anemones, extending tendrils in all directions toward synapses, the knobby communication connections between neurons. Without astrocytes, researchers find, neurons couldn't nourish themselves, grow, or transmit signals effectively." Science News, Vol 159, No 14, April 7, 2001, p. 222 (article not online).

#46 Re: Astrocyte

by eiseli

Wednesday April 18th, 2001 4:19 PM

Hm... good idea. But I think it is a little bit too far fetched. Will you explain every average user what an Astrocyte is? I don't think so. However, if you have a clear name, one can easily imagine what is behind it.

True, in the 3rd poll, there are also some more obscure names. On the other side, we had to make a choice for the candidate names, and this chose has now been made. Sorry you are a little bit too late...

#48 Re: Re: Astrocyte

by morg

Friday April 20th, 2001 8:54 AM

Are you going to explain to every user what a "Mozilla" is? Or what a "Mycroft" is? I think Astrocyte deserves consideration.

#47 Poll

by SubtleRebel

Thursday April 19th, 2001 8:45 AM

I wish someone had posted here that there was a poll going on elsewhere.

#49 Godot

by bandido

Saturday May 12th, 2001 7:21 AM

Why not calling it Godot? We were waiting for him in the play .. maybe we should have been searching for him :-)