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Tell me why . . . they like Monday? That's what commentators around the world were asking yesterday, after PwC Consulting, the 32,000-strong global consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, announced it will change its name to Monday, which is already the name of the most hated day of the week.

"They had a short list of seven names," snorted Naseem Javed, the head of Mississauga-based ABC Namebank, who came up with such corporate monikers as Telus and Celestica. "How do you become a global icon? You can't pick a name from a calendar and say, 'Let's go for it.' "

A columnist in the Daily Telegraph, in Britain, asked readers to "spare a thought" for the PwC Consulting staff: "For them, every day will soon be a Monday."

The company, active in 52 countries on six continents, explained the choice saying: "Monday is a fresh start, a positive attitude, a part of everyone's life."

Sure, chided a Dow Jones columnist: "Monday also is a part of everyone's life. For most of us, it's the hardest part, which is why positive attitudes often don't enter into it."

Even Sehra Eusafzai, the global spokeswoman for PwC Consulting in New York, had trouble sounding enthusiastic yesterday.

"I'm living it," she said, when asked her thoughts on the name Monday. "I ... um ... I believe that as an employee who enjoys my work here, the name is what I make of it."

Had they listened to the radio over the years, the brains behind Monday surely would have had second thoughts. "Tell me why? I don't like Mondays," sang the Boomtown Rats. "It's just another manic Monday," the Bangles complained, while the Mamas and the Papas sang: "Monday, Monday, can't trust that day."

The company, though, promises Monday will lift it to new and exciting heights, and plans to spend US$110-million marketing the name, worldwide, once it splits from PwC later this summer. PwC Consulting has offices across Canada, though the company will not reveal its employee count in this country.

Asked whether the firm here will be Monday Canada, Ms. Eusafzai said, "That will be determined. It's Monday for now."

PwC Consulting hired Wolff Olins, a global brand consultancy, to help it find a new name. "I don't know where the name came from precisely," Ms. Eusafzai added. "We did solicit employee input.

"With any new name out there, there's bound to be a range of reactions. People are entitled to their opinions. It's real, it's roll up your sleeves, it's go to work and generate results."

But fans of the new name are in short supply.

Gary Prouk, a partner in the Sebastian Consultancy, a marketing group in Toronto, said, "Yikes. When Detroit builds bad cars, they're called Monday cars. Absolutely every reference to Monday is bad."

New names are proliferating among the global consulting giants, as they move out en masse from the accounting firms in which they grew up. Last year, after it split from Arthur Andersen, Andersen Consulting became Accenture.

KPMG Consulting, which split in 2000 from KPMG LLP, said it soon will adopt a new moniker; Deloitte Consulting is also in the market for a new name.

One Dow Jones columnist said KPMG Consulting should consider Friday, because "Friday is all about enthusiasm, rejuvenated thinking, beer, pretzels."