Using an Internet competition to name things isn’t always the best way to honour a new big-ticket item. Something Sweden’s MTR Express rail company should have kept in mind when it launched its own naming contest for new express trains slated to run from Stockholm to Gothenburg.
After all the results were tabulated, Trainy McTrainface had taken the top honours. Other top picks included Ingvar (after a local TV host named Ingvar Oldsberg), Estelle (after Sweden’s five-year-old Princess Estelle) and Glenn (a popular name among local sports heroes,) according to news portal Local.se.
Voters waited in anticipation to see whether or not their unusual top choice would be honoured. In order to avoid a public outcry, Per Nasfi, the head of marketing for MTR Express, announced that the name would stick.
"I can guarantee with my life that the train will be called Trainy McTrainface," Nasfi told The Local. "We saw pretty quickly that Trainy McTrainface was in the lead and the popular option.”
On Tuesday, the rail company held its naming ceremony and Trainy McTrainface was officially inaugurated.
“A recurring comment in the international media is that in Sweden we listen to the people and take their opinions seriously,” said MTR Express commercial director, Peder Osterkamp, at the inauguration. “Some bloggers have written they can now move to Sweden, ‘where there is still some democracy left’.”
A positive spin to an otherwise humorous outcome.
