March 3, 2008

Top 10 Failed Names for Scientology

Making up your own religion -- that's where the real money is. Or so went the thinking of L. Ron Hubbard. And if you're going to make up your own religion, you need good marketing to compete with the long-established brand names.

People who pick on Scientology ignore the real work that went into building it up into what it is today. Even choosing a name was crucial. It had to tap into the mysterious allure of the promise of science without having anything to do with existing science. In precise terms, it had to sound sciency without sounding religiousy.

Here are the top 10 rejected names for Scientology.

  1. Religionology -- Rejected for being to religiony.
  2. Scienterifficness -- Rejected for being too peppy.
  3. Scientawesome -- Overstates the awesomness.
  4. Ripoffology -- Sounds too much like it's going to teach you how to rip other people off. Misleading.
  5. Pseudoscience -- Taken
  6. Science-ology -- Folks were put off by the hyphen
  7. Scienceness -- Too wishy-washy
  8. Hubbardism -- Close! Tempting but... nah.
  9. Carnival of Thetans -- People would expect fried dough at every meeting. No go.
  10. Scamologreedy -- Gives it all away in the name.

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Posted by James at March 3, 2008 11:36 PM
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Comments

I'm officially stealing and creating Scientawesome. Under no circumstance could you possibly overstate awesomeness. And that's just science.

Posted by: Derek at March 4, 2008 8:36 AM

Church of Scientology sounds a little cooler than Whackjob Wonder Farm -- and the initials WWF are already taken.

Posted by: Chuck S. at March 4, 2008 1:32 PM

I love Scienterifficness. I can just see Tom Cruise and his snappy preppy hair-do and big toothy grin shucking for Scienterifficness!

Posted by: Patti M. at March 4, 2008 1:42 PM

Perhaps Carnival of Thetans is onto something with fried dough at meetings. I love fried dough so much that I might go to a meeting just for the snacks.

Posted by: Sharon at March 4, 2008 4:18 PM

I agree, Sharon! Plus, adding the word "carnival" to anything automatically makes it 70% more appealing to me.

Posted by: Julie at March 4, 2008 4:42 PM

Are you paying attention, Church of Scientology?

Posted by: James at March 4, 2008 4:51 PM
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