What's in a name?

During the development of Omphalos, a question that has been commonly asked by people watching the development streams is something along the lines of:

What the hell is an 'Omphalos'?

An interesting question, to say the least, and a fair one.

When I decided on what the Devember 2022 project was going to be (a streamer control panel application) I floundered about for a name more exciting than just devember-2022.

So, being the clever individual that I am, I went to an online thesaurus and looked for words that mean the same thing as "control panel" looking for inspiration, and amongst the many synonyms the word omphalos caught my eye.

Why? Well, according to Merriam Webster:

omphalos - noun
om·pha·los ˈäm(p)-fə-ˌläs

a central point : HUB, FOCAL POINT

Omphalos originated as an ancient Greek word meaning "navel" and is
distantly related to two other words of the same meaning, Latin umbilicus
and Old English "nafela." (The latter of these is the source of our word
navel.)

The ancient Greeks also used "omphalos" to refer to a sacred, rounded stone in
the Temple of Apollo at Delphi that was supposed to mark the center of the
earth.

In the 19th century, English speakers borrowed "omphalos" for this sense and
its more general "center of activity" sense, as well as to refer to raised
ornamentation on a shield or in the base of a cup or dish.

In the 1920s, "omphalos" made another contribution to English via the word
omphaloskepsis, which means "contemplation of one's navel."

The definition and meaning of the word tickled me. Center of Activity seems like a great connotation for a project like this. Add in that the name is also related to navel gazing, and the more I thought about it the more I could not resist naming the application that.

And so, here we are.