Names: Amegy

I puzzled and verbally sneered at this new bank name, Amegy, when I first saw it on a Houston billboard. However, I was not going to propound on it here until I spoke yesterday with MM, who feels the same way and whose husband has an account there.

Amegy. The name makes an intelligent person's face crinkle and ponder, "What the heck...? Where did that come from...? How did they cobble that one together, and from what...?"

If I may, Amegy probably owes its debt to Dynegy, which would have been a construct from the Greek words dynamis (power) and ergos (work); except Dynergy sounds, well, nerdy; hence Dynegy.

Also if I may, it helps that corporate names don't have to mean anything, even if they have a genuine linguistic pedigree. So long as a name sounds catchy, a faux, partial or even (in the case of Amegy) cadged pedigree will do every time. With invented names like Xerox the clear winners in the trademark competition for uniqueness and memorability, Dynegy and Amegy fill the bill. (For the record though, Amergy would suck wind worse than Dynergy.)