I confess that it is always odd to see a musician, now deceased for a decade, when searching for this platform. Mind you, that is an ongoing tribute to their legacy, which is how it came about.

In a 2020 post, Lemmy's co-creator Dessalines wrote about the origin of the name Lemmy. "It was nameless for a long time, but I wanted to keep with the fediverse tradition of naming projects after animals. I was playing that old-school game Lemmings, and Lemmy (from Motorhead) had passed away that week, and we held a few polls for names, and I went with that."

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network)#History

some would prefer the limited growth.

i picked moist because who the fuck would want to market that

when I say 'fediverse' people think I'm saying 'fetiverse' and sometimes they ask if it's like open source fetlife. 🫠

Eh, names may sound stupid at first, but after saying it a million times it'll start to sound normal. "Google" sounded stupid and silly when they just first started, but now it sounds formal and makes you think of dystopia and dread.

No issues with the name. My problem is I can’t just do a simple search and add lemmy to make it search lemmy, like you can with Reddit.

No

As the name of open source projects go, Lemmy isn't the biggest dumpster fire I've come across. It's clear how to pronounce it, at least.

You put some respect on Lemmy Kilmisters name, sir.

Based on Twitter’s success, I don’t think names matter much. If it were named something like CockAndBallTorture, sure, but Lemmy is fine.

What's holding it back is not having a button to filter out all the US drama. Eternity had it, but that app isn't working anymore.

I have to admit, the name did directly lead to me taking longer to adopt it.

Dead musicians aside, it's not a cool name. It's not a cute-in-a-quirky-way name, and most egregiously, it's an actual name. For a person.

I think that the fediverse is held back by its name, but since I don't have a solution, I usually never mention it. I try not to observe problems unless I have some solution, no matter how weak or terrible.

I don't think it has that big of an impact. But most open source developers forget that it might end up being used by more people than just them .

Mastodon. Lemmy, do a web search especially for Lemmy on reddit and you are more likely than not to end up on threads about the singer . and don't get me started on the many unpronounceable names of open source projects.

Not as much as Loops probably.

The description as a 'link aggregator' on the fediverse page is holding it back.

I think it's more the network effect. There aren't many users here. Like, I know the handles of all the usual posters on the Canada community.

It's indeed an odd name but holding it back from what ? Its not a popularoty contest . Why is "widespread adoption" seen as the metric for success? That onky needed for shitty commercial products, to me it's great right now..

How dare you besmirch the name of the frontman of the greatest band that has ever existed!