Justin and Ben Smith pick a name for their media start-up.

Justin Smith and Ben Smith, co-proprietors of a brand new media start-up that has captured the eye of the web information world, revealed on Tuesday the identify for his or her enterprise: Semafor.

The identify is a variation on the phrase “semaphore,” a visible signaling equipment typically involving flags, lights and arm gestures, and sometimes utilized in a nautical context.

At an look final week, Justin Smith stated he and his associate had chosen a model identify “that’s the identical phrase in 25 or 35 completely different languages,” a mirrored image of the corporate’s international ambitions. “It is rather deliberately going to have the ability to stay in Asia or Europe or the Center East or America,” Mr. Smith stated.

The selection of Semafor was revealed on Tuesday by Axios, a information website that additionally started life as a high-profile start-up with an uncommon identify derived from a Greek phrase.

“It was actually essential for us to have a reputation that had the identical which means no matter your native tongue,” Justin Smith, the previous chief govt of Bloomberg Media, informed the positioning.

This isn’t the primary time Justin Smith has expressed curiosity in a model identify derived from historic Greek.

On no less than one earlier media undertaking, Mr. Smith strongly thought of utilizing the phrase “Atlas,” in keeping with an individual conversant in his brainstorming. His concept for The Atlas didn’t finally go ahead.

Justin Smith and Ben Smith, who’s a former media columnist for The New York Occasions, intend to recruit English-speaking journalists in lots of nations to compete with worldwide information organizations like Reuters and The Related Press. The Smiths, who usually are not associated, stated they anticipated the positioning to debut within the second half of the 12 months.

A federal trademark registration for “Semafor,” filed on Jan. 16, refers to “an interactive web site that includes information and knowledge within the fields of common curiosity information.” Together with “offering information and knowledge,” the registration cites quite a lot of enterprise functions, together with “expertise company and reserving providers,” “literary company providers, specifically, illustration of journalistic expertise,” and “arranging private appearances by individuals working within the discipline of reports journalism and public affairs.”

Solely a handful of English phrases are the identical or related in lots of international languages, together with taxi, chai, pajama and soup.

Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.