It may be a household name now, but the first time Steve Jobs heard the word "Siri," he wasn’t sold. That’s according to Dag Kittalaus, the Norwegian cocreator of the iPhone 4S’ famed virtual assistant, who offered new details this week on how the technology was named, and how it seduced the late Apple founder. Today, 87 percent of iPhone 4S owners say they use Siri each month. But how did the increasingly famous digital assistant end up with her unique name? Read on:

　　“Siri”现在可能家喻户晓，但史蒂夫·乔布斯第一次听到这个词时并没有接受。这是iPhone 4S的虚拟助手在挪威的合作创造者Dag Kittalaus本周提供的关于该项技术如何被命名，以及它如何吸引苹果前创始人的新细节。如今，87%的iPhone 4S机主说他们每月都使用Siri。但是这位越来越出名的数码助理的名字最终是如何确定的?请继续读：

　　Who came up with the name?

　　谁想出这个名字的?

　　Kittalaus did. As he revealed at a startup conference in Chicago this week, he planned to name his daughter Siri after a former coworker (in Norwegian, Siri means "beautiful woman who leads you to victory") and even registered the domain Siri.com. Then he and his wife had a son, and the website was shelved. But when Kittalaus was ready to launch his splashy speech recognition technology, he resurrected Siri. "Consumer companies need to focus on the fact that the name is easy to spell [and] easy to say," he said.

　　是Kittalaus 想出的。他本周在芝加哥启动会议透露，Siri是他前同事的名字，他本打算叫他女儿Siri(在挪威，Siri的意思是“引你走向成功之路的美丽女人”)甚至注册了域名siri.com。然后他和他的妻子生了一个儿子，网站也被搁置了。但当Kittalaus准备推出他的语音识别技术时，他重新使用了“Siri”。 他说：“消费品公司需要关注的是，这个名字易拼写又朗朗上口。”

　　How did Apple get involved?

　　苹果是如何参与进来的?

　　Siri, Inc. was incorporated in 2007, and the technology was launched as an IOS app available in the Apple Store in early 2010; plans were in the works to make the software available for the Blackberry and Android phones. Things changed when Kittalaus, then the start-ups’s CEO, received a call three weeks later from Steve Jobs.

　　Siri公司于2007成立，该技术于2010年初作为iOS应用程序推出在苹果应用商店推出，为黑莓和安卓手机提供软件。当这个初创企业的首席执行官Kittalaus三周后接到史蒂夫·乔布斯打来的电话后，事情发生了变化。

　　Then what happened?

　　后续进展如何?

　　The Apple CEO flew Kittalaus to his home in Cupertino, CA, where the two had a three-hour chat in front of Jobs’ fireplace about the the future of technology. "And, you know, he talked about why Apple was going to win, and we talked about how Siri was doing," said Kittalaus. "He felt that we cracked it." Apple went on to purchase Siri for $200 million in April 2010, ending plans to make it available for rival operating systems. There was one problem, however — Jobs wasn’t fond of the name.

　　苹果首席执行官带着Kittalaus飞到加利福尼亚州丘珀蒂诺的家，两人在乔布斯家的壁炉前关于未来科技交流了三个小时。Kittalaus说：“他谈到为什么苹果会赢，我们还讨论了Siri目前的情况。他认为我们搞砸了它。” 2010年4月，苹果以2亿美元的价格收购了Siri，让竞争机型不再可以使用它。但有一个问题，乔布斯并不喜欢这个名字。

　　Why didn’t Jobs change the name?

　　乔布斯为什么不改这个名字?

　　Kittalaus, who worked for Apple until October 2011, tried to convince the notoriously hardheaded Jobs that Siri was a great name. But in the end, the company stuck with the name for a more straightforward reason: No one could dream up anything better. (According to Wikipedia, the name is now also used as shorthand for "Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface.") "Jobs was similarly on the fence about the names ’iMac’ and ’iPod,’ but failed to find a better option," says Leslie Horn at PC World. But it seems Kittalaus was right about Siri. Today, she’s an indelible part of pop culture, and a benchmark other companies are trying to top.

　　Kittalaus在2011年10月开始为苹果工作，试图说服顽固的乔布斯Siri是一个好名字。最终，公司以更简单的理由坚持使用这个名字：没有人能想出更好的。(根据维基百科的说法，这个名字现在也被用来作为“语音解释和识别接口”的缩写)。Leslie Horn在PC World上说：“因未能找到一个更好的选择，乔布斯也同样对“iMac”和“iPod”等产品的命名持中立态度。”但现在看来，Kittalaus对Siri的看法似乎是正确的。如今，她是流行文化中不可磨灭的一部分，也是其他公司试图超越的标杆。