How did Siri get its name?

12/26/2019

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Society Story: How did Siri get its name?

As a startup, when coming up with Siri's name, we wanted something that was easy to remember, short to type, comfortable to pronounce, and a not-too-common human name. And we wanted to be able to get the domain name for not too much money... ;-)

Once Siri became the leading candidate, everyone on the team had their own favorite explanation of the meaning. Dag Kittlaus, our Norwegian-American CEO, once considered using Siri as the name of his child, and liked the Norse meaning "beautiful woman who leads you to victory". For me, Siri, which means "secret" in Swahili, was a tip of the hat to our pre-named days when we began as stealth-company.com. I also liked the fact that it was the reverse of Iris, a software system I help build as part of the CALO project which Siri spun out of. Some liked the resemblance to SRI, which was the research institute that ran the CALO project. We knew about Siri = beauty in Sinhalese, but missed that SHIRI = "butt" in Japanese (they're not the same word, but closely pronounced...)

And it was all a big surprise that Apple decided to keep the original Siri name for it's launch as part of iOS. There were other candidates that were leading up until the final weeks...

This information was taken from Quora. Click here to view the original post.

Did you know the history behind the Siri's name?

#Society #funny #Quora

What are your thoughts on this subject?

20 Comments

lmoores

Siri is voiced by Aussie Karen Jacobson.

marymallinger

I like the name Siri

deborahpmercer

That was interesting! I actually know someone called Alexa, which is a pretty name but now potentially problematic!

Wayne Roberts

We named our Siamese cat Sirikit after the queen of Thailand, shortened to Siri.

lls

deborahpmercer, ...we still named our new cat Alexa...it just fits.

Larry Paula Elliott

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s daughter’s name is Suri which I assume is pronounced the same as Siri.

lmoores

I knew about the Norwegian and Swahili.

Jim Mascair

I figured it was the reverse of Iris and a poke at the competition.

Malini Rao

In Kannada (South Indian language) Siri means wealth😊

enrique

Thanks for the explnation i love learning new things

DOSHog

Veronics Moss, I wonder why you wander!

Tina Marie Haddad Rhodes

Jim Adams, People should not speak about what they do not Know...🐪🐪🐪🐪

Hannah Fein

Thank you for the interesting information.

Keti Chubinidze

Actually it’s even worse in Georgian. But it’s impossible to please everyone :).

Sean Philips

Jim Adams, do some basic research before you comment, it’s got nothing to do with the Egyptian goddess. It’s an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or al-Sham).