Hi Eddie, I have a question I hope you can help with!
I recently found out that during the design of California Adventure, Imagineering hired an outside company, Karma Creative (now
World Creative Supply), to name a large number of the attractions shops and restaurants that appeared in the park (their website lists such names as
Paradise Pier, Burger Invasion, San Joaquin Volley, The Souvenir Itch, Taste Pilots’ Grill, Maliburritos, S.S. rusthworthy and lots more). I certainly realise that coming up with effective nomenclature requires an aptitude and flair for language, but I would have thought the Imagineers possessed those skills in-house.
Essentially, it’s got me interested in where the names in the park come from. Is (or was) it a common practice at Imagineering to outsource this role, or is it more generally done by the Imagineers (I do know in one particular case with Animal Kingdom it was the show writer that come up with ‘Beastlie Kingdomme’, and specifically insisted on the spelling as it was historically accurate to the style of medieval England). I also suspect it will be the marketing department that have a huge influence on names (especially with murmurings that Cars Land took that name over Radiator Springs or Route 66 because it would be easier to communicate through commercials what was being presented), is this right?
I’m also interested in your own personal involvement in nomenclature. Did you come up with
Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, Sci-fi City,
Cybermid, or any of the other project names you worked on? What do you think makes a good attraction name, and are there any techniques Imagineering uses to find them? I imagine it’s a lot of brainstorming, but I wonder who holds the final say, and what sort of things need to be communicated in the name.
And for anyone else, I’d love to hear which attraction names people like best (it’s an area that I really don’t think gets much thought!). Personally, my favourite attraction names are
Space Mountain: De la Terre a la Lune (perfectly combing the imposing ‘Space Mountain’ with the wonderfully elegant ‘from the Earth to the Moon’),
Countdown to Extinction (has any other ride name conjured up so much tension?!), and even the simple yet massively evocative
Pirates of the Caribbean – straight to the point, but what more else needs to be said.