Branding

So Many Mavens

How did a Yiddish word for “expert” become a popular brand name in the U.S.?

Over the last four years, large swaths of San Francisco have become pocked with commercial vacancies. The Covid pandemic accelerated the hollowing-out of the downtown area; many restaurants, retail stores, and service businesses closed their doors. Above those doors you’re likely to see For Lease signs, and on many of those signs you’ll see a single business name: Maven, shorthand for Maven Properties, a Bay Area-based real estate agency.

One of many Maven Properties signs spotted around San Francisco. This one is on a vacant restaurant property on tourist mecca Fisherman’s Wharf. Photo: Nancy Friedman

This Maven isn’t the only Maven in town. There’s also the nonprofit telehealth Maven Project; the Maven Recruiting Group (“We believe in the power of human connections”); and Maven, which represents furniture manufacturers. (That last Maven is not to be confused with Mavin, an Ohio-based furniture maker.) Between 2016 and 2020, when General Motors shut down the service, you could have hitched a ride with a Maven car share. And I’m pretty sure that among the Bay Area’s many software engineers there are some who use the Maven build automation tool, introduced by Apache Software Federation in 2004.

Nor is “Maven” exclusive to the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve also found Maven brand names in Texas, Atlanta, London, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, among other places.