Why naming an AI is different
Most product names get one job: be memorable, be ownable, don't be taken. An assistant name has a harder job. You're not naming a tool — you're naming someone who will speak for you. When a guest messages at 11pm about check-in, the reply comes from Sami. When a coach's client asks to reschedule, it's Sami who answers. The name has to sit comfortably in that sentence. It has to sound like a person, because it's doing a person's work.
Aria was the first name we tried. Aria is also Opera's AI — the SEO fight alone ruled it out.
The myrtle thread
Mirto is the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian word for myrtle. A Mediterranean plant — small white flowers, dark berries, evergreen leaves that smell faintly of eucalyptus when you crush them. In Sardinia, those berries become Mirto, the after-dinner liqueur every grandmother keeps a bottle of. In Greek mythology, myrtle was sacred to Aphrodite, woven into wedding wreaths as a symbol of love and constancy. The plant has been quietly around for three thousand years, doing its thing along every coastline of the Mediterranean.
We wanted the company name to be rooted in something real. Not an invented word. Not a blend of consonants that sounded startup-y. Myrtle was the answer — old, honest, planted in a region we live in and understand.
A name that travels
Here's the honest reason Sami won: it's easy to pronounce in almost any language.
Try it in Spanish. In French. In Italian, Portuguese, German, English, Dutch. Two syllables, no consonant clusters, no sound that breaks in any major language we could think of. It lands the same way on every tongue. For an assistant whose name will be said out loud — in voicemails, in bookings, in "hi, this is Sami, how can I help" — that's not a nice-to-have. That's the whole point.
It's also a real name, not an invented one. Used as a given name across several cultures, which means it doesn't trigger the "is this a brand?" reflex. People just hear a name.
And it's gender-neutral. The assistant speaks for women, men, businesses, couples, solo operators. A name like Aria or Max carries assumptions. Sami doesn't.
What Sami has to do
Here's the quiet test we kept coming back to: would you introduce Sami to someone?
"Sami handles my messages when I'm teaching" sounds like a sentence a yoga instructor could say out loud. "My AI handles my messages" sounds like something you'd apologize for. That gap is the entire reason the name matters. Sami isn't marketed as AI to the person on the other end — the owner knows, but the guest, the client, the prospect is just talking to Sami.
For that to work, the name can't sound like software. It has to sound like the assistant your friend hired and never stops recommending.
The runner-up
Timo made it to the final round. Same clean two-syllable shape, same cross-cultural legibility, same evergreen feel. We went with Sami for two reasons: it lands just as cleanly in every language we tested, and Timo reads as male in more of them than Sami does. Gender neutrality tipped it.
Timo may come back. If we ever ship a second assistant with a different personality — more direct, more structured, more "executive assistant" than "friendly concierge" — Timo is waiting.