MY suggestion was Superluminal. My partner's was Sojourn. I thought mine was better, but in fairness I also thought his was pretty good. He felt the same way, but in reverse.
So it seemed the cool and fair way was to let people online decide. We ran a poll here and on RPGnet. John Wick said this was a bad idea because (and I love this, it's so John) they might pick "the wrong name." John also thought Superluminal was CLEARLY the better choice.
Of course, I felt they were both good names and there really wasn't a right one or a wrong one. If I'd felt that way, we'd have fought more over the name. We went through a LOT of names. I swear, we talked about names for at least a year.
In the end, RPGnet & ENworld both chose Sojourn. Bastards, the lot of you!
The final name is; Sojourner. Which I really, really like. Maybe even more than Superluminal. Sojourner sounds like it could be the name of a ship. Or someone's title! Gary Gygax: Sojourner. Awesome! It's strong, it's one word, and it doesn't have "games" or "publishing" in the title, which I have come to hate.
At one point, I really wanted Tannhauser, as in the Tannhauer Gate. That was taken. Then I realized I also really liked Sennheiser, the guys who make speakers and headphones. There was something cool and weighty about these names. And I thought "man, why can't we have a name like that?" Probably because we're not German dudes.
For a while, I was toying with an amusing name, which I normally hate. I liked "Off By One Games," because it points to my programming heritage. But it was taken.
I like astronomy terms because I feel they're forward looking and optimistic. So when we were trying to make a word from both our names, we hit upon Jove. J from Jesch + O, V, & E from Colville. That got me to Superjovian, which I also liked, but he nixed. He was afraid astronomy names would imply we only did sci-fi games.
I wish I could remember all the names we tried. We came up with some really silly ones that sounded cool at the time. My original name for a game company was InfinityBox. I was looking for a name and I was at lunch with my buddy Craig and we're in a booth with a mirror behind him and a mirror behind me, but at an angle. And he said; "If that mirror were parallel with this one, we'd be inside one of those infinity boxes like Spock has in his quarters." He didn't have to add "In Star Trek II," I knew exactly what we was referring to. We've both wanted one of those since we were kids and, in fact, at the time I did have one hanging on my wall. But it was square and Spock's was octagonal. Craig does not have one. This is because he's never been able to find an octagonal one. What we learn from this is A: I'm willing to compromise and get a square infinity box when an octagonal one does not present itself and B: I'm weird enough to think "InfinityBox" is a cool name.
Now, I'm weird enough to think Sojourner is a cool name. It's a name I can live with, you know? As Terry Pratchett said; you need a name you can wash the floors in.
