What does the i in iNaturalist stand for?

General
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I had an argument recently about how the name iNaturalist should be translated/transliterated to another language. Neither of us is a native English speaker. My opponent insists that the i stands for ‘I am a’ and so must be translated, which seems plainly wrong to me, from any perspective (grammar, orthography… common sense, after all).

However, I could not find any information about how the founders of iNat came up with this particular name. Does the i stand for intelligent, interactive, or something else? Does it stand for anything at all? :)

Thanks!

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Probably “internet”.

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I always thought it was in parallel with other things like iTunes, iPod, and iPhone. Although, these all refer to Apple products, so that opens another mystery.

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Hi Dmitry! :wave:

People who would know best include @kueda, @loarie, @tiwane, and @carrieseltzer , but here is my take on it:

  • The “i” stands for INTERNET
  • So “iNaturalist” stands for “Internet Naturalist”
  • The name “iNaturalist” is copied from “iMac”
  • Apple introduced the iMac desktop computer in 1998
  • “iMac” stood for “Internet Computer”, as in, a personal computer that could access the internet, which was a feature worth mentioning in 1998
  • In 1998, Ken Segall was an employee at an L.A. ad agency. Ken was handling Apple’s account when he came up with the name “iMac”, and he pitched it to Steve Jobs.
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@cyathus, could it be:

  • ինտերնետ բնագետ or ի-բնագետ in Armenian, or
  • интернет-натуралист or и-натуралист in Russian?
    :thinking: :smile:
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“I, Naturalist!!”

You have to say it loudly and defiantly. ;-)

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You are on the right track. There was a time when it seemed every company or organization wanted to put a lowercase i in front of their product name. It could mean internet, intelligent, interactive, innovative or all four combined.

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It’s part of an old trend of internet-connected things starting with a lowercase “i” that is probably specific to English and may not be translatable into other languages

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Oh, those articles! It’s the i, not just i :sweat_smile:
Thanks!

In Russian, most people say [eye-naht], by the way. At least those I have met.

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In mathematics, i is an imaginary number equivalent to √-1.
We can therefore say that an animal with :

  • 10,000 legs is a myriapod (myria- = ten thousand)
  • 1000 legs is a chilopod (chilo- = thousand)
  • 100 legs is a centipede (centi- = hundred) [or centipod?].
  • 12 legs is a dodecapod (dodeca- = twelve)
  • 10 legs is a decapod (deca- = ten)
  • 6 legs is a hexapod (hexa- = six)
  • 4 legs is a tetrapod (tetra- = four)
  • 2 legs is a biped (bi- = two) [or bipod ?]
  • √-1 is an ipod (√-1 = i)
    :grinning:
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Ergo sum.

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“iNat, ergo sum” should be iNat’s motto. :laughing:

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I think “i” stands for information, as the initial iNaturalist project was for an information science program – the assignment as I recall was how to use information science to accomplish a goal, maybe a social goal.

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Related:

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wasn’t iNat originally developed just for Iphone?

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Also, naturalist is sometimes confused with naturist which is a type of nudist. So be careful with your terminology.

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We have at least 2 among my iNatters.

Back to that i
Cape Town in Xhosa is iKapa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town
which makes me feel at home in iNaturalist.
(but that is pronounced as a short i, so not ‘I, am a Naturalist’)

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If that is all true, then what are pea-pods? O.O

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iNat as i know it (2010) was a combination of websites with Flickr as import i thought.
The iPhone was in 2017, 7 years later.

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From the googles;

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, said that the “i” in iPhone stands for “internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire”. When he introduced the first iMac in 1998, he explained that the “i” originally stood for “internet” to indicate the product’s purpose of making internet access simple and user-friendly. Over time, the “i” has come to embody other meanings to reflect the broader scope of Apple’s product line and its intended appeal to a wide range of users. However, some say that the “i” technically “doesn’t have an official meaning” and is a “personal pronoun” and “instruction”

First IPhone was 2007.

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