What's In a Name?

The fashion for company name changes is fraught with danger. One of the latest is the conversion of the Norwich Union insurance company to Aviva (in anticipation of going global). There is one ugly rumour that there is a clothes shop with the same name in the city of Norwich (a subliminal influence?). Even if this turns out to be an urban myth, the name is odd. The word 'viva' is found in both Italian and Spanish and means 'live' (it is derived from the Latin 'vivat' meaning 'to live'). I appreciate that it is from the Greek (but Latin/Greek chimera words are quite common in Biology) but the prefix 'a' means 'without'. So one potential (if somewhat contorted) translation of Aviva is 'without life' i.e. 'death'. This doesn't fill me with confidence about the product but the rebranders may be hoping to get us to regard their insurance as inevitable as death and taxes.