Are Your Names Like Roaches?
Roaches reproduce.
Roaches reproduce a lot.
One female roach can become
80,000 roaches within a year.
Roaches survive.
Roaches have been around
for more than 280 million years.
Roaches remain powerful even when neglected.
Roaches can live a week without their heads.
Roaches can live without food for a month.
A roach's heart can stop moving without harming the roach.
Roaches show up everywhere.
Adult roaches can squeeze into a space the thickness of a coin.
Everyone who sees one big roach remembers it.
Even if they only see if for a second.
Even if they don't like it.
Most even mention that one big roach to someone else.
Roaches have been around for a long time.
Not the exact same roaches.
Children of roaches.
And those roaches' children.
Still recognizable. For 280 million years.
You haven't seen that one big roach for awhile.
You think that it may not come back.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Then, later, you see it again.
You realize that one big roach was always on your mind.
When you see another roach,
when you see even a small part of a roach,
when you see something that looks like a roach,
even somewhat like a roach,
you think about the first big roach you saw.
Are your names like roaches?
Susan D. Griffith, Ph.D.
psychologist
designer of memorable, targeted Internet domain names
