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Unconventional spelling has long been a go-to route for startups seeking a name that鈥檚 both recognizable and unique.

Sometimes it works out. Companies like , and built businesses memorable enough that we know how to both spell and pronounce them. In the consumer brands realm, meanwhile, , , and have also done pretty well.

While startup naming trends come and go, misspelled monikers have shown staying power. They were so popular a few years ago that we often saw multiple companies with the same spell check-triggering names in the 附近上门 dataset.

These days, however, newer startups don鈥檛 seem quite as enamored with unconventional spellings. Overall, we鈥檙e seeing a broad shift toward more serious-sounding names. Amid a tough fundraising environment, founders are seeking names they think will appeal most to investors.

Still seeing some misspellings

That doesn鈥檛 mean misspelled names are going away. A 附近上门 analysis of funded companies founded in the past couple years found numerous examples, including the 15 highlighted below.

Topping our list is one of the most heavily funded seed companies around: . The Pittsburgh company raised $300 million in July to build 鈥渞obot brains.鈥�

Other examples include , a developer of AI decision-making tools for the aviation industry, , an AI image-making app, and , an AI personalization platform for brands.

Domain name availability has historically been one driving factor behind the perennial popularity of unconventional spelling. Securing a domain for a correctly spelled, common noun tends to be either infeasible or prohibitively expensive.

A fading trend?

At a time when people are increasingly searching online via voice, however, misspelled names have disadvantages.

That鈥檚 the perception of , a founder of branding consultancy . While a name like, for example, Lyft, works just fine typed into a search engine, he observed, a voice search would likely return results spelled 鈥渓ift.鈥�

For well-established brands, voice interfaces should be sophisticated enough to deliver results with unconventional spellings. But for obscure startups, Benedini said, unusual spellings could present a problem.

Additionally, there鈥檚 research indicating that consumers prefer conventional spelling. A by marketing professors at and found that people were more enthusiastic to try a new beverage called 鈥淐lear鈥� than an identical one branded as 鈥淜lear.鈥�

Consumers also opted for products with familiar spellings when given a choice between brands labeled Distilled and DSTLD. Some study participants later relayed that to them, the offbeat spellings seemed like a marketing gimmick.

The rode ahed

Looking forward, it seems unlikely misspelled startup monikers will go away entirely, particularly in the crowded market for English language names.

It should also be taken into account that, even without brands, English contains tons of homophones, or words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently. Think of here and hear, bear and bare, whether and weather, and the list goes on.

It鈥檚 not like English is always phonetically logical to read either. As such, one might expect those communicating in a language that already embraces a lot of unconventional spelling not to be surprised to see brands follow suit.

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Related reading:

• How Startups Stopped Being Fun
• Startups Names Stay Strange As Bad Spelling Proliferates
• Startup Names Are Still Getting Less Silly