Where the name AICHIKI comes from

Every so often someone asks where the name comes from, or tells us it's a strange name for an app. The answer is longer than people expect, so here it is in one place.

It started as a different app

In 2024 the app didn't exist yet. The idea at the time wasn't a roleplay platform at all. We wanted to make an AI app with a girl in it who talks to you. That was the whole concept.

We were watching Bleach at the time. One of the main characters is Rukia Kuchiki, and we both liked how the Kuchiki name sounds.

Kuchiki and Csicky

My surname is Csicky. In Hungarian, "cs" is pronounced "ch", so the name reads as Chiki.

Kuchiki and Csicky sit right next to each other: ku-chiki, chiki. We were making an AI app. AI-chiki. That was the moment the name appeared, and it took about a second.

Then we tried to break it

Coming up with a name is the easy part. The next step was turning it around and looking for reasons it would be a bad one.

The first thing we found was a reason it was a good one. "Chi" and "ki" are the same word. Chinese writes it chi (or qi), Japanese writes it ki, and it means life energy, the force that runs through everything. The name contains both spellings. AI plus life energy. We liked that a lot.

Then we checked languages. A product name can be completely fine in one language and embarrassing in another. The example we had in mind was a painkiller sold here called Saridon, which in Hungarian sounds like a rude word. We went through language after language to make sure "aichiki" didn't mean something unfortunate anywhere, or sound like it did. It passed.

We also asked an AI for name ideas along the way. Every suggestion it gave was terrible.

The domains

Then I checked the domains. Both aichiki.com and aichiki.ai were available. For a short name in 2024 that is rare, and it was too good to pass up, so I bought them.

And then I set the whole thing aside.

How it became the app you're using

Some time later I lost my job. I got some money on the way out, and that bought me time. Around then my wife kept complaining about the AI companion app she was using, so I told her I'd make her one of her own.

Somewhere in building it I realised it was good enough for more than one person. I had the name and the domains already, so we used them and released it for everyone else.

So that's what sits behind the name: an anime we were watching, my surname, and an old word for life energy, all landing on the same seven letters. It was a lot of thinking for something that looks like a random word.

— Rudi