I also agree that Messenger is a bad name, mostly because people associate it with ‘‘The’’ messenger.
Spark sounds good as it’'s easy to pronounce and sounds well in the middle of the sentence. E.g. “…and then we can set up a tunnel, so the support guys could use spark to talk to the customers.”
Ignite doesn’‘t sound that good. I’‘m not sure why, but I guess that one of the reasons is that it’‘s not a noun. It sounds clumsy if you say "we’'re going to run 3 ignites, one for every environment…" You have to say ‘‘ignite server’’ or ‘‘ignite instance’’, which is a bit too much.
So, after all these analyses here is my name proposal: ‘‘flintstone’’ (you know the kind that makes sparks). Sounds ok in the middle a sentence and if you have multiple instances you can name them fred, willma, dino, etc. this paragraph is meant as a joke[/i]
I agree with nearly everyone that I think a name change is in order. ‘‘Messenger’’ was always confusing, since it sounds like a client.
I would suggest NOT going with Ignite, if for no other reason except that those with non-native english speakers seem to have trouble with it.
I know I’‘m boring, but I never have a problem with boring descriptive names. Such as “Jive IM Server” (yes, I know that name will get zero votes, even if I like it). Barring that, something like “Blaze IM Server” or somesuch (I know I’'m kinda stuck on getting ‘‘Server’’ in there, just so people know what it is).
Good point ddimitro. A noun works much better in speech than a verb. That would make ignite -> ignition server, which to me doesn’‘t work right (it sounds more like a system meant to run my car’'s engine).