The N900 might well be a very cool bit of kit but the name is, like so many of Nokia's, very difficult to remember.

It doesn't help that there are already older and totally different smartphones called the N90, N91, N92, N93, N95, N96, N97, and even if there weren't "N900" isn't exactly memorable. It doesn't conjure up any kind of imagery in people's heads, it isn't exciting, it doesn't sell itself at all.

Could someone at Nokia please give the next Maemo device a proper name, something that people can remember easily?

Or am I the only one that feels this way...?

i preferred the name rover to n900
i'd like a name for the next device too but i just know it will get a letter and a number

In term of mass marketing, I agree.
But personally it could be named "square box with a screen and keyboard", i would get it regardless.

Easier said that done these days. Most of the good names are taken, and its hard as all get out to get naming rights for international items.

I would be more under the assumption that the next Maemo devices (that aren't Maemo 5 devices) would be an entirely new family of devices, probably with something near "Ovi" in the name.

Maemo 3GS ? :P

Nokia "Freedom".

I'm not even that bothered what the name would be, just anything to stop it sounding like a spare part reference number...

These numbers and letters are meant to be descriptive. Not 'cool'.

There is no formal release cycle, and it is about hardware, so something like Ubuntu 9.04 (April 2009 A.D.) and Ubuntu 9.10 (October 2009 A.D.) doesn't work either. The OS names already follow alphabet with first letter. Bora, Chinook, Diablo, <E*_already_existed>, Fremantle, <G*_already_existed>, Harmattan. You cannot bind this 1:1 on the hardware though.

Do you already see it happening? Tons of names for products? Which have to be translated to various languages? I don't. If you manage any high number of products you are going to give them IDs which are managable. Usually, numbers. Sometimes combined with letters. That allows you for example also to categorize them further. Case in point: IPv4/IPv6, RFID, barcode.

These points also prove you're going to make an abstraction layer to make them easier to handle with in personal situation. Barcode is reference and otherwise not used. IPv4/IPv6 has DNS to make easier for humans to use. And, RFID is abstracted by metadata. (The numbers indicate a lot, and are again used as reference.)

So instead of internal name RX-51, Rover and external name N900 I suggest giving N900 also a 'codename' in addition to N900. The bad side of that is that if you go further in history, that name loses its relevance. I know Sharp Zaurus SLC1000 was Akira because I had that device, but I have no idea which device was Spitzner or Collie or Poodle while I remember and know characteristics of SL5500, SL6000, SLC7?0, SL8?0, SL1000, SLC3000, SLC3100, SLC3200. The same confusing situation arises with 'The iPhone' which always refers to the latest iPhone, or so it seems. Past discussion, including wiki pages, quickly gets confusing or bitrotten after a new iPhone comes out while the actual product names are actually informative.

Ah, in that case lets call it Nick which is short for both 'Nickname' as well as 'N1k' aka 'N1000'.

I hate naming gadgets with proper nouns, like "the chocolate", "the storm", "propel", etc. With that said I wouldn't want FGZ-64EZ3-B ver. 2.3 either. I think N900 is simple, "sweet", people will know what you are referring to and it's easy to remember, type and say.