Today the mozillians welcomed the new name and visual ID of the former Firebird -- the browser is now called Firefox and it sports a new logo depicting a chinese red panda curled around our small blue planet. Nice. In the meanwhile Mozilla is still waiting for version 2.0. Not to be called branding :)

A Mozilla Firefox Brand Name FAQ was posted online which answers a few potential questions:

• Why change the name?

To avoid overlap. The colloquial name "Firebird" is also in use by another open source project. While we don't believe our use of the Firebird name infringed on their trademark, we wanted to be responsive to the concerns of fellow open source developers.

• Why did you choose Firebird in the first place?

With the assistance of attorneys we assessed other uses before selecting Firebird and did not consider these uses to be in the same domain as our web browser. It is very difficult to come up with a good name that is not also used by some other company or project, so choosing and verifying the availability of a name is a complicated process that involves many difficult judgment calls.

• Why Firefox?

It's similar to Firebird. It's easy to remember. It sounds good. It's unique. We like it. And we weren't able to find any other project or company even remotely similar to a web browser that uses the same name. [...]

• But I hate the new name. It's stupid

Our editors are trying to figure out if this is a question. Of course not everyone will like the new name, especially at first. We're confident most people will quickly get used to it. New names have a way of sounding terrible at first. If you're unhappy with the new name, consider trying out the many improvements we've made in the latest release of our browser - we hope that'll make you feel better. After all, the most important is how the thing works, not what it's called.

The last one is great: "Our editors are trying to figure out if this is a question." Anyone who is doing naming knows how tough it is -- completely subjective and incredible volatile. You cannot touch it. You love it or hate it for no reason. Sure -- we are rationalizing our decisions and talk lots of marketing but in the end it's much of a gut feeling. Ben Goodger describes their naming process:

«Over the span of about 2 weeks a small group at The Mozilla Foundation including Catherine Corre, Bart Decrem, Brendan Eich, Chris Hofmann and myself pored over lists of over two hundred names, many gleaned from the Phoenix to Firebird transition. We reached a point where we had a handful that were the best of that lot, but none of us was entirely satisfied. Searches of the United States Patent and Trademark Office website showed that all of the options we had picked up were potential minefields from a trademark point of view. We refocused our energy on names beginning with "Fire-" in an attempt to preserve the link with the past, and so that we could retain some of our evocative flame imagery.

Ultimately it was Jason Kersey of MozillaZine that came up with the winner. I don't think he was serious with his suggestion, but the naming group liked it well enough. A scan of the USPTO database was positive. We filed for a trademark registration in the United States in December 2003.

At the same time our lawyers scanned uses elsewhere in the world and spotted a potential red flag in Europe. Initially it seemed like there would be no problem and we prepared for a release on December 23. Unfortunately the situation in Europe turned out to be a very real problem and the release had to be delayed.

After the Christmas/New Year break, the situation played out over the following six weeks, with our lawyers in the United States and Europe as well as Bart Decrem at The Mozilla Foundation working to resolve the issues. At times it seemed like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. We contemplated releasing under an interim name. I was optimistic however and held the release, and eventually we turned the corner and the issues were resolved.» [read the whole post on Ben Goodger's blog]

Also, Jon Hicks -- of Hickdesign UK -- describes the process of logo construction (and God, he keeps calling it "branding"! – people, branding is about values, not logo).

Nice. Hey -- favorability is assured already: you get a good product for free. Go get it.