And a big part of that branding is in its names.
Mice named after snakes.
Keyboards named after spiders.
Headsets named after fearsome sea creatures.
That said, my rankings don’t rely on any scientific or linguistic basis, just a gut feeling.
Huntsman Keyboard
Razer’s keyboards are named for spiders.
The largest, thegiant huntsman spider of Laos, can be nearly a foot long.
An opus is a musical piece, the singular form of “opera.”
It paid off: “Razer Blade” is damn near unforgettable as a product name.
Firefly mousepad
Razer’s mousepads are named after insects.The Firefly serieswas its first with built-in LEDs.
It fits pretty perfectly.
But the more literal interpretation to modern English speakers surely helps in this mouse’s branding appeal.
They often manifest as humans with the head of a cobra, or as multi-headed snakes.
Mamba mouse
9.
Famously, the basilisk turns you to stone with its gaze.
Raptor monitor
12.
Big squid, big drivers… yeah, it works.
I suppose snakes are ambidextrous, in that they are equally inept at using either right or left hands.
The Viper is on the lower end of the snake-mouse scale for lack of distinctive branding.
But thresher sharks are known for a distinctive long tail, and there’snothing in the headsetthat mirrors that trait.
It’sa loan word from Algonquin, now used for more or less any small axe.
A bonus factor is association with a series of long-range missiles.
Even so, naming a controller aftera legendary lightning beast of Japanese folkloreis pretty metal.
But I’m knocking it down the list for omitting the space and for camelcasing.
Tetra headset
Tetra aresmall freshwater fish, popular in home aquariums.
They’re only intimidating if you happen to be a gnat.
Kishi controller
A kishi is a two-faced, vaguely hyena-ish demon of Angolan folklore.
It’s all about luring in victims with smooth talk, then eating them.
Maybe the two halves of the controller count as two faces?
Wolverine controller
Come on,this controlleronly got in because of the Marvel character, bub.
It fits in the themefor controllers, but it’s kind of generic.
I get the impression that someone thought “Razer Panther” sounded too close to something offered by MadCatz.
Turret keyboard and mouse
The Turret is acombination wireless mouse and keyboard for the Xbox One.
Ornata keyboard
Ornata is a Latin word meaning decorated, the root word of the English adjective ornate.
It’s often used in taxonomy for striped or spotted animals and plants.
Cynosa keyboard
“Cynosa agedabiae” is a single species of wolf spider from North Africa.
Sphex mousepad
The Sphex isa small, thin, inexpensive mousepad.
It’s named aftera genus of small waspswith more than 130 species.
Seiren microphone
Come on Razer, that’s just a misspelling of siren.
But there’s no reason not to call this the Siren.
It even makes sense, asit’s a microphoneand sirens sing.
Junglecat controller
Razer’s not even trying with this one.
And there’s so much they could have done witha Switch-style controller pair for phones!
Nope, super generic name.
It’s a weird choice here.
The ears light up, because of course they do.
(I’m not sorry.)
Just because you’re going for “work” doesn’t mean you could’t have fun names.
Acari mousepad
Acariis a subclass of ticks and mites.
BlackShark headset
Razer, did you seriouslyrun out of sharks?
This one goes particularly low on the list for more camelcasing.
Raion controller
This six-button controller ismade especially for fans of 2D fighting gameswith clicky mechanical buttons.
If it’s referring to anything else, perhaps in some other language, I can’t find it.
