Now there’s Pumagility: a cool-looking style of running shoe brought to you by the athletic brand Puma.  But while it’s certainly a portmanteau—and a reasonably clever one—I can’t say I’m crazy about it.

Yes, it’s a fitting name for a lightweight trainer that’s all about ease of movement. (And I like the tagline it’s been paired with: Get a move on.) And yes, the meaning is clear enough—heck, it’s practically a mission statement. But there lies the rub.

As portmanteaus go, it’s flat-footed.

What makes most portmanteaus so cool is their multidimensionality: the way they blend two disparate concepts to create a third. But the word puma already evokes agility—which is why it works so well as a stand-alone brand name. Pumagility is redundant. It practically bludgeons you with its message.

There are also naming architecture issues. Why does this running shoe, and almost no other in the Puma portfolio, get to piggyback on the mother brand? It would be one thing if Puma adopted a naming convention where the brand name was always combined with another word. But Pumagility is one of only two naming examples that I see in their running shoe portfolio that uses the word puma (the other being Pumafox).

Fact is, Puma’s running shoe portfolio is already overrun with a thicket of diverse names. (To give you just a tiny smattering, they include:  Faas 300, Voltaic III, Cell Vetara NM, OSU NM, Osuran, Volt, Complete Ventis II, Cell Turin, and H-Street Plus.) What’s needed are some simple, consistent naming conventions—rather than more invention.

Besides, Pumagility is a bit of a mouthful. And there’s something counter-intuitive about a name that’s trying to communicate speed and takes so darn long to say.

Overall Grade: B-

But on the other hand, the name has two huge flaws. First, it is already “taken” by a major athletic equipment brand. While there isn’t likely to be a trademark dispute over this name (the trademark office is smart enough to know that there isn’t much chance of consumers confusing a shoe with a motor vehicle), there is a big mindshare issue. Puma (the athletic company) has recently made a significant resurgence, and is once again among the leading brands in the category. Segway could have done itself a favor by choosing a product name with more room to maneuver.

Furthermore, the company seems dedicated to teaching us that P.U.M.A. is an acronym (it stands for Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility — but of course you knew that). Why? What does that really long, cumbersome, and generally forced extended version of the name add? Nothing, really, that we didn’t already know by a) the fact that Segway is selling it and 2) one look at the darn thing. Every time they push the acronym extension, they take away all the great sleek and agile cat associations that made the brand name so cool in the first place. The extended version is just trying too hard to do too much. Let the brand name carry the cool part and create a tagline or product descriptor to communicate the rest.