alt Hacker NewsI don't think Whatsapp sounds dumb. It's "what's up", and it came out when mobile apps were getting popular with everyone. I immediately got it when I heard it the first time, and it sounded good to me.
"BirdyChat" just sounds childish.
Maybe I'm in the minority, who knows, but project names are important. I've seen so many posts of people dismissing projects just because of the name...
Gimp would have to be the extreme example of this. I used to recommend Krita to people, despite it being less appropriate for photo editing, just to avoid using 'Gimp' in work/polite scenarios.
I agree - "Birdy" is the name used with infants when talking about birds, or is a bird toy that photographers use to distract people ... which is a bit too close to the truth, perhaps.
To me it also suggests 'a toy version of Twitter'; and Twitter already had enough negativity around it for me.