I'll go one step further about what you said and guess that a search with a generic English name in a search engine will return 1000s of results with your application at the bottom of page 100.

With a unique name you are now on page one at the top of the results. Probably also valid for search in app stores.

However for this to work you need first to hear the name somewhere and it needs to be easy to remember.

This would be a great theory, except there wasn't a jump in web traffic from the name change, only conversions/purchases.

My theory would be that choosing a non-existing word for the name instantly created a brand, whereas before it had just been an anonymous app with a name that referred to what it did.

I'm guessing it's that or the old name left a bad taste in peoples' mouths and the new one is a meme-centric buzzword-y type thing.

Perhaps with the long generic word name, the site was perceived more as a 'website' while the shortened unique one is now perceived as a 'web app'.