Unfortunate name

A colleague of mine who works in project finance sent me a link to a BBC article today with the simple subject line, "Unfortunate name". I opened the link expecting to find a reference to a man named Randy Johnson or a woman named Crystal Shanda Lear, but instead it led me to a story about a new joint venture between Gazprom and Nigeria's state-owned oil company. I didn't understasnd what was so unfortunate about it until I got to the second line of the story, where ... well, just take a look for yourself.

Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture. The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

I'm sure that depending on your accent and background, this is a completely innocuous name that raises no offense or objection. However, something tells me that they're going to have a hard time selling Nigerian oil in the Deep South with a name like that. I mean, it's not like BP is going to call its new Scandinavian subsidiary "Crackergas" or "Honkyoil".