LAST MONTH, I found myself reading a short stack of those newfangled rah-rah business magazines.

One of the things that struck me was all the weird, weird names companies are giving themselves (or hiring image-consultants to give them).

I mean, it’s one thing to take an ordinary English-language word or phrase, stick an “E-” at the front and/or a “.com” at the end, and boast about how innovative and outside-the-proverbial-box you are. It’s something else again to come up with a grouping of vowels and consonants that means absolutely nothing except what your ad budget can make it mean.

Such made-up corporate monikers have come a long way since George Eastman thought up “Kodak” simply because he thought the “k” or hard “c” consonant was snappy, or since Standard Oil of New Jersey picked “Exxon” from a list of random letter-collections spun out of a mainframe computer. Now we’ve got whole companies that do nothing but find names for other companies.

Herewith, some of the goofiest and/or cleverest nonsense names seen in hi-tech magazine ads this past month:

• “Baldhead.”
• “WLion.”
• “Radware.”
• “Agilent.”
• “Yantra.”
• “Talisma.”
• “Symix.”
• “Naviant.”
• “Centra.”
• “Cysive.”
• “Genesys.”
• “Moai.”
• “Globix.”
• “Ministrel.”
• “Commtouch.”
• “NaviSite.”
• “Digex.”
• “PaylinX.”
• “Vstream.”
• “Pandesic.”
• “Prominet.”
• “Alteon.”
• “Vixel.”
• “NVST.com.”
• “Flooz.”
• “RareMedium.”
• “Aquent.”
• “Xircom.”
• “vJungle.”
• “SonoSite.”
• “Icos.”
• “Penton.”
• “Vodafone.”
• “Amsurg.”
• “Akamai.”
• “Allaire.”
• “Pervado.”
• “Sentillion.”
• “Syncronex.”
• “Sequenom.”
• “Informix.”
• “Iridium.”
• “Zyan.”
• “Getronix.”
• “Ciena.”
• “Impath.”
• “Cendant.”
• “Premera.”
• “Conexant.”
• “Avista.”
• “Cinergi.”
• “Cotelligent.”
• “Eritech.”
• “Aspyr.”
• “Firaxis.”
• “Formac.”
• “Yoeric.”
• “Trexar.”
• “Adaptec.”
• “Inspiron.”
• “Bizzed.com.”

Now: Write a sentence using all of these.

TOMORROW: Putting gentrified uses into old buildings–slightly better than just razing ’em.

ELSEWHERE:

• A website half-owned by the Must See TV people believes it’s now OK to praise popular culture, especially big-studio movies and big-network TV shows. The piece’s writer thinks she’s making a shocking, daring statement somehow….
• “I hate it when my husband chews on ice cubes….”