The thing I like about the names I'm comparing is that they do, wonderfully, what a name is supposed to: grab you by the eyeballs. I mean, how can you not pay attention to a brand that calls itself Hell's Kitchen or Hitler's Cross? In terms of basic functionality, both names do the job evenly well. So which names scores higher for me?
It's not enough for a name to get your attention. It must do it without being unacceptably offensive. Unfortunately, Hitler has too much going against him to be acceptable in any form whatsover. Maybe the only acceptable place for Hitler as a brand name would be for something hellacious and totally negative like a prison or some such thing. Politically correctly speaking, Hitler stands for everything bad about this world and if you're trying to build a brand you want people to be positively associated with, stay away from what the world considers totally, unarguably and politically unacceptable. In a different time and a more tolerable world, Hitler may have passed muster, but not anymore. We're too conservative and too scared to swallow anything too controversial.
Hell, on the other hand, is a more acceptable word/concept than Hitler. (Amazing, eh?) Besides, the name Hell's Ktichen has the word kitchen in it and cues in the product category (restaurant) - which Hitler's Cross doesn't. (Maybe the people who started Hitler's Cross ought have called it Hitler's Larder or some such thing less inflamatory. Hmm...probably not. Hitler is just not meant to be patronised. Only detested. No matter what, if anything, might be good about the monster.)
History apart, both names satisfy all the basic parameters you need for a name to be memorable. Unfortunately, a back story/History (as I have demonstrated in some of my previous posts) is an important factor when it comes to choosing a word, or set of words, for a name. Hell's Kitchen win. Hands down.
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