Civilians Flee War As ISIL Frontline Shifts Following Kurdish Sinjar Offensive (Photo : Getty Images)
Having the same corporate or personal name as the acronym of a dreaded Islamic terror organization is certainly disadvantageous and could lead to problems. What is ironic about the situation is that a U.S. company and a British woman were named not after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but an Egyptian goddess.
A week before Christmas, biotech company ISIS Pharmaceuticals, based in Carlsbad, California, announced its corporate name change to Ionis and started to trade on Dec. 22 using the ticker symbol IONS. The change was caused by a 7 percent drop in the company's shareprice in June because its ticker then was ISIS.
Although a company spokesman insists that "We haven't seen any evidence that our name had any impact on our stock price," Ionis Vice President of Communications and Investor Relations Wade Walker admits that the company had received a lot of calls and emails suggesting a name change for the firm.
Iopnis CEO Stanley Crooke was initially hesitant to change the company's name and told CNBC "They can change their name," but changed his company's name when asked by a local police in early 2015 if his company is "the group that cuts people's head off."
The pharma firm was actually named after Isis, the Egyptian goddess of health, which was the same case for Canadian Rani Isis Lake who is encountering difficulties booking flights now because of her name. The 29-year-old Briton could not book a plane trip between Toronto and Vancouver for a one-year volunteer work in Canada for 2016, reports Daily Mirror.
All three booking agents she scheduled a flight cancelled which she finds ridiculous and completely unfair. Lake stresses, "I don't want to change my name and I shouldn't have to."
With Expedia, the reason given was technical problems with taking bookings, while she got a cancellation email from Lastminute.com despite having paid for the ticket. CheapOair claims it cancelled a booking because she allegedly requested the cancellation.
However, all these travel agents say that the cancellation was not linked to her name but are subject to cancellation policies such as if the booking was made by an international agent. To solve the problem for now, Lake's mother used only "Rani" to book a flight for her daughter.
