How I Chose “Gullie” as Our Brand Name

The name is a person, not a platform.

I’ve lived in seven cities across four continents. Every single time, the hardest part was never the flight or the paperwork. It was the first few weeks of not knowing where anything was, not understanding how things worked, and not having anyone to call who just got it.

That experience is why I started Gullie. And it’s also why I named it what I did.

It Started with Gulliver

The name comes from Gulliver’s Travels — Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel about a man who journeys to lands that are completely foreign to him and has to figure everything out from scratch. Every system works differently, and every norm he took for granted no longer applies. He’s the outsider, every single time.

That is relocation. You land in a new country and everything resets. How to open a bank account. How to find an apartment. How healthcare works. What the tax system expects of you. You’re Gulliver every time.

But I didn’t want to call the company Gulliver, it was too formal. I wanted a name that sounded like a friend. Someone you’d text when you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. Someone who already knows the context and doesn’t make you explain everything from the beginning.

So I shortened it to Gullie. Warmer, and more familiar. Like a nickname that just stuck.

Then the Meaning Started to Travel

Here’s the part I didn’t plan for. Once we put the name out into the world, our community members from different countries started telling us what it meant to them. And every time, it fit.

In Hindi and across South Asia, “gully” (from गली, “galī”) means a narrow lane — the intimate neighborhood kind, where everyone knows each other, where kids play cricket between the houses, where community lives. It’s the word behind “Gully Boy,” behind gully cricket, behind an entire cultural identity tied to streets, neighborhoods, and belonging. For a company that helps people find home in a new place, having your name mean “the street where home is” in one of the world’s most spoken languages is something I could not have designed.

The french often pronounced us as “goo-lee.” There’s a beloved French children’s TV channel called Gulli that’s been on air since 2005 — also named after Gulliver’s Travels and shortened the exact same way. For French speakers, the name already carries warmth without us having to explain anything.

And the etymology goes deeper. The English word “gully” originates from the 17th century French word “goulet,” meaning a narrow strait or channel. A passageway from one place to another. Which is, quite literally, what we build.

None of this was planned. But the fact that the name resonates across Hindi, French, and English — each time meaning something tied to home, familiarity, and passage — feels like the name chose the company as much as I chose it.

Home Is a Feeling, Not a Place

There’s a moment in every relocation where the new city stops feeling foreign and starts feeling like yours.

You find your coffee shop. You figure out the shortcut to the train station. Someone at work invites you to something and you actually go.

That’s the moment a relocation succeeds. Not when the last box is unpacked. Not when the visa is approved. It succeeds when the person feels at home.

Home is not an address. Home is a feeling. You can’t automate a feeling, but you can build the infrastructure that makes it easier to arrive at one.

That’s what Gullie is. The friend who’s already been there. The one who handles the complexity so you can focus on the part that actually matters: building a life somewhere new.

So when people ask me what “Gullie” is, i tell them: the name is a person, not a platform.