“Badb.” What’s in a Name?

Not all names are created equal. Sometimes, the best ones are purely functional: wingnut, starboard aileron, third violin. They describe, they classify, and they get out of the way. But for the things that truly matter, the ones built to endure or to protect, a name should carry more weight. It should hint at story, purpose, and destiny.

So why Badb?

The name is borrowed from the Morrígan, a Celtic goddess from pre-Christian Ireland whose domain spans war, death, and fate. The harbinger of doom, fierce and inscrutable, she was said to take the form of a crow, often seen watching over the battlefield. She symbolises awareness, intelligence, and just the right amount of menace. The crow’s name was Badb (pronounced bye-b), and she was known to deal sternly with those who failed to please her.

The Badb project is about building extraordinarily practical software and hardware for the men and women from whom we ask so much. These tools will be in the hands of people taking immense risks on our behalf. For that reason, a flatly descriptive name – or worse, an acronym forged in a committee meeting – would never suffice.

We are defended by Lightnings, Leopards, and Patriots: machines whose very names evoke speed, agility, and resolve. They are not just machines or acronyms in documents; they are symbols and symbols carry emotion, history, and meaning.

There’s also comfort in knowing that even awkward names can find greatness through the work they represent. Who, in their right mind and business-centric approach, would have endorsed “Microsoft,” “Google,” or “Apple”? Yet each of those companies built reputations that transformed names once thought geeky or irrelevant.

Our task is no different. We aim to build tools of such capability and consequence that Badb will once again come to mean something powerful, enduring… and perhaps just a little ominous.