What's in a name? Sony Ericsson turns to Asian-inspired phone names

This week Sony Ericsson announced a series of new cell phones. I got to check them out in person yesterday and the handsets themselves are really cool. One has a 12.1-megapixel camera. One has motion-sensitive gaming controls like a Wiimote.

But it's not the phones themselves that I want to write about today, it's their names.

Now cell phones, like all technology products, have gone through a long evolution in how they're christened. They started with alphanumerical strings alongside a few distinct monikers -- BlackBerry, Treo -- sprinkled in. Next came the cutesy pronounceable acronyms like the RAZR and the PEBL. Then the iPhone and the vaguely semi-descriptive names like the Instinct, Katana, and Chocolate, which are now flooding the market.

Now Sony Ericsson is taking the humble cell phone name to a new locale: Asia. As a twist, its new phones bear distinctly Japanese (or, at least, Japanese-sounding) names: Yari, Satio, and Aino. Curious.

Looking to step outside the box, Sony Ericsson's head of North American product marketing Jon Mulder and I got to talking about the science -- or really, the art -- of product naming.

With these phones, Sony Ericsson is clearly trying to stand out against a sea of names that are all starting to sound alike. Mulder also says that the company wants to evoke everything to the consumer that an Asian name would inspire -- high-tech, bleeding-edge, svelte -- just with menus in English.

But what about consumers? Even Mulder originally stumbled over the pronunciation of Satio (rhymes with "patio"), and Aino could go either way -- "I-know" or "A-know." Will Joe Average feel comfortable showing off his "Yari" when his pal has an iPhone? Is it "manly" enough?

Mulder wanted advice, and I told him I'd ask you. So what do you think? Would you prefer to pocket a Satio, or is something like a TW3550 more your style? Sound off in the comments below. And remember, you're shaping the industry with your commentary!