Cheapflights has a canny PR campaign working behind the scenes to support the launch of its Zugu metasearch business - guess the logic behind the new name.
It could be a clever wheeze to get people talking about the new site in online social areas such as Twitter, especially as it has a competition attached to it.
But it isn't the first time a consumer-facing travel company has used a seemingly unconventional, non-travel name for its brand, and some companies will go to extraordinary lengths to decide on an identity.
Microsoft, for example, spent millions on obtaining the rights to the name "Expedia" ahead of its launch in the mid-1990s. It previously belonged to a French tyre company.
The people on this list may not have gone to the same lengths, but the names come from similar levels of obscurity.
- CouchSurfing - makes sense for those in the know, otherwise a watersport/furniture mystery.
- Boo.com - forever associated with a dot-com failure, now a trip planning site.
- Goby - travel search engine with a cute fish logo.
- Gorp - adventure-based ideas and content site.
- Hotwire - Expedia-owned answer to Priceline, nothing to do with heat or electricity.
- Joobili - well-deserved darling of the seedcamps, content and inspiration site based in Hungary.
- Kayak - metasearch engine, rather than water-based activities operator.
- Mobissimo - Beatrice Tarka-fronted (one of only a few female CEOs in travel) metasearch site.
- Momondo - more travel search, but with stylish design more akin to fashion sites.
- NileGuide - not specifically about Egypt, or the River Nile. Great content site.
- Oodles - not a typo on noodles, but a clever car hire site.
- Opodo - one of the original European OTA giants, still no obvious clue to its meaning.
- Ruelala - membership-based, private sale site, nothing to do with French streets.
- Seat61 - hugely popular yet randomly named rail travel site.
- Simonseeks - vanity name perhaps, brainchild of TravelSupermarket-founder Simon Nixon.
- Wayn - once explained the Where Are You Now? tagline, but then they changed strategy, and tagline.
- Yapta - US-based, highly regarded airfare tracking site.
- Zugu - new metasearch effort from Cheapflights, no idea (yet) what it means.
- Zuji - Travelocity brand for the Australia-New Zealand market.
- Zoombu - closed-beta metasearch site, ZoombuSki offshoot also shed little light.
NB: Also worth noting the dreaded curse of "Trip",
highlighted recently by Tripology (temporarily), TripHub, TripSync et al.
Feel free to add more names in the comments section.